AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTIONS 
TO  CIVILIZATION 


AND 


OTHER   ESSAYS 
AND  ADDRESSES 


BY 
CHARLES  WILLIAM   ELIOT,  LL.D. 

PRESIDENT  OF  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY 


NEW  YORK 

Centurp  Co* 

1897 


Copyright,  1800,  1897,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 

Copyright,  1890,  1801.  1893,  by 
THE  FOKUM  PUBLISHING  COMPANT 

Copyright.  1896,  by 
THOMAS  Y.  CBOWKLL  &  Co. 


THE  DEVINNE  PRESS. 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  contains  some  of  the  miscellaneous 
addresses  and  magazine  articles  which  I  have 
written  during  the  last  twenty-five  years,  educa 
tional  addresses  and  pape.t£'  being  reserved  for  an 
other  volume.  With  the  exception  of  trifling  cor 
rections  made  in  revising  the  proofs,  these  papers 
are  now  printed  just  as  they  were  originally  pub 
lished. 

I  beg  the  reader  to  regard  the  date  of  each  ad 
dress  or  article.  Otherwise  he  may  be  surprised 
at  some  statements  which  have  ceased  to  be  en 
tirely  accurate. 

C.  W.  E. 

NORTH  EAST  HARBOR,  MAINE. 
August  20,  1897. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

-  I  FIVE  AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  CIVILIZATION  .       1 

II  SOME  REASONS  WHY  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC  MAY 

ENDURE 39 

III  THE  WORKING  OF  THE  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  .         71 

IV  THE  FORGOTTEN  MILLIONS     .       .        .       .  103 
V  FAMILY  STOCKS  IN  A  DEMOCRACY       .       .       .       135 

^  VI  EQUALITY  IN  A  REPUBLIC       ...       .       .    161 

VII  ONE  REMEDY  FOR  MUNICIPAL  MISGOVERNMENT        173 

<VIII  WHEREIN  POPULAR  EDUCATION  HAS  FAILED        .    203 

IX  THREE   RESULTS   OF  THE  SCIENTIFIC  STUDY  OF 

NATURE .       237 

X  THE  HAPPY  LIFE     .......    245 

XI  A  HAPPY  LIFE      ,        .        .        .        .        .        .        277 

XII  A  REPUBLICAN  GENTLEMAN    .        .       .       .       .283 

XIII  PRESENT  DISADVANTAGES  OF  RICH  MEN   .        .       291 
*•  XIV  THE  EXEMPTION  FROM  TAXATION  ....    299 

XV  THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  CHURCHES      347 
XVI  WHY  WE  HONOR  THE  PURITANS  ....    355 

XVII  HEROES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR       ....       367 

XVIII  INTERNATIONAL  ARBITRATION        .       .       .        .373 

XIX  INSCRIPTIONS         .        .        .  383 


FIVE  AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTIONS 
TO  CIVILIZATION 

AN   ADDRESS 
DELIVERED  AT  CHAUTAUQUA,  AUGUST  19,  1896 


FIVE  AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTIONS 
TO  CIVILIZATION 


OKING  back  over  forty  centuries  of  history, 
£ .  -»     we  observe  that  many  nations  have  made 
act-eristic  contributions  to  the  progress  of  civ- 
ion,  the  beneficent  effects  of  which  have  been 
lanent,  although  the  races  that  made  them  may 
lost  their  national  form  and  organization,  or 
relative  standing  among  the  nations  of  the 
i.    Thus,  the  Hebrew  race,  during  many  cen- 
s,   made  supreme   contributions  to  religious 
£»'ht ;  and  the  Greek,  during  the  brief  climax  of 
•ace,  to  speculative  philosophy,  architecture, 
•ture,  and  the  drama.    The  Roman  people  de- 
)ed  military  colonization,  aqueducts,  roads  and 
ces,  and  a  great  body  of  public  law,  large  parts 
lich  still  survive ;  and  the  Italians  of  the  mid 
ges  and  the  Renaissance  developed  ecclesias- 
organization  and  the  fine  arts,  as  tributary 
ie  splendor  of  the  church  and  to  municipal 
y.    England,  for  several  centuries,  has  con- 
ted  to  the  institutional  development  of  repre- 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

^-sentative  government  and  public  justice ;  the  Dutch, 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  made  a  superb  struggle 
for  free  thought  and  free  government;  France,  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  taught  the  doctrine  of  in 
dividual  freedom  and  the  theory  of  human  rights ; 
and  Germany,  at  two  periods  within  the  nineteenth 
century,  fifty  years  apart,  proved  the  vital  force  of 
the  sentiment  of  nationality.  I  ask  you  to  con 
sider  with  me  what  characteristic  and  durable  con 
tributions  the  American  people  have  been  making 
to  the  progress  of  civilization. 

The  first  and  principal  contribution  to  which  I 
shall  ask  your  attention  is  the  advance  made  in 
the  United  States,  not  in  theory  only,  but  in  prac 
tice,  toward  the  abandonment  of  war  as  the  means 
of  settling  disputes  between  nations,  the  substitu 
tion  of  discussion  and  arbitration,  and  the  avoid 
ance  of  armaments.  If  the  intermittent  Indian 
fighting  and  the  brief  contest  with  the  Barbary 
corsairs  be  disregarded,  the  United  States  have 
had  only  four  years  and  a  quarter  of  international 
war  in  the  one  hundred  and  seven  years  since  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution.  "Within  the  same 
period  the  United  States  have  been  a  party  to 
forty-seven  arbitrations — being  more  than  half  of 
all  that  have  taken  place  in  the  modern  world. 
The  questions  settled  by  these  arbitrations  have 
been  just  such  as  have  commonly  caused  wars, 
namely,  questions  of  boundary,  fisheries,  damage 
caused  by  war  or  civil  disturbances,  and  injuries 
to  commerce.  Some  of  them  were  of  great  mag 
nitude,  the  four  made  under  the  treaty  of  Wash- 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

ington  (May  8,  1871)  being  the  most  important 
that  have  ever  taken  place.  Confident  in  their 
strength,  and  relying  on  their  ability  to  adjust 
international  differences,  the  United  States  have 
habitually  maintained,  by  voluntary  enlistment  for 
short  terms,  a  standing  army  and  a  fleet  which,  in 
proportion  to  the  population,  are  insignificant. 

The  beneficent  effects  of  this  American  contri 
bution  to  civilization  are  of  two  sorts :  in  the  first 
place,  the  direct  evils  of  war  and  of  preparations 
for  war  have  been  diminished ;  and  secondly,  the 
influence  of  the  war  spirit  on  the  perennial  conflict 
between  the  rights  of  the  single  personal  unit  and 
the  powers  of  the  multitude  that  constitute  organ 
ized  society — or,  in  other  words,  between  individual 
freedom  and  collective  authority — has  been  reduced 
^tp  the  lowest  terms.  War  has  been,  and  still  is,  the 
school  of  collectivism,  the  warrant  of  tyranny. 
Century  after  century,  tribes,  clans,  and  nations 
have  sacrificed  the  liberty  of  the  individual  to  the 
fundamental  necessity  of  being  strong  for  com 
bined  defense  or  attack  in  war.  Individual  free 
dom  is  crushed  in  war,  for  the  nature  of  war  is 
inevitably  despotic.  It  says  to  the  private  person : 
"  Obey  without  a  question,  even  unto  death ;  die  in 
this  ditch,  without  knowing  why;  walk  into  that 
deadly  thicket;  mount  this  embankment,  behind 
which  are  men  who  will  try  to  kill  you,  lest  you 
should  kill  them;  make  part  of  an  immense  ma 
chine  for  blind  destruction,  cruelty,  rapine,  and 
killing."  At  this  moment  every  young  man  in 
Continental  Europe  learns  the  lesson  of  absolute 

3 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

military  obedience,  and  feels  himself  subject  to  this 
crushing  power  of  militant  society,  against  which 
no  rights  of  the  individual  to  life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness  avail  anything.  This  perni 
cious  influence,  inherent  in  the  social  organization 
of  all  Continental  Europe  during  many  centuries, 
the  American  people  have  for  generations  escaped, 
and  they  show  other  nations  how  to  escape  it.  I 
ask  your  attention  to  the  favorable  conditions  un 
der  which  this  contribution  of  the  United  States  to 
civilization  has  been  made. 

There  has  been  a  deal  of  fighting  on  the  Ameri 
can  continent  during  the  past  three  centuries ;  but 
it  has  not  been  of  the  sort  which  most  imperils 
liberty.  The  first  European  colonists  who  occu 
pied  portions  of  the  coast  of  North  America  en 
countered  in  the  Indians  men  of  the  Stone  Age, 
who  ultimately  had  to  be  resisted  and  quelled  by 
force.  The  Indian  races  were  at  a  stage  of  devel 
opment  thousands  of  years  behind  that  of  the 
Europeans.  They  could  not  be  assimilated;  for 
the  most  part  they  could  not  be  taught  or  even 
reasoned  with ;  with  a  few  exceptions  they  had  to 
be  driven  away  by  prolonged  fighting,  or  subdued 
by  force  so  that  they  would  live  peaceably  with  the 
whites.  This  warfare,  however,  always  had  in  it 
for  the  whites  a  large  element  of  self-defense  —  the 
homes  and  families  of  the  settlers  were  to  be  de 
fended  against  a  stealthy  and  pitiless  foe.  Con 
stant  exposure  to  the  attacks  of  savages  was  only 
one  of  the  formidable  dangers  and  difficulties  which 
for  a  hundred  years  the  early  settlers  had  to  meet, 

4 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

and  which  developed  in  them  courage,  hardiness, 
and  persistence.  The  French  and  English  wars  on 
the  North  American  continent,  always  more  or  less 
mixed  with  Indian  warfare,  were  characterized  by 
race  hatred  and  religious  animosity  —  two  of  the 
commonest  causes  of  war  in  all  ages;  but  they 
did  not  tend  to  fasten  upon  the  English  colonists 
any  objectionable  public  authority,  or  to  contract 
the  limits  of  individual  liberty.  They  furnished  a 
school  of  martial  qualities  at  small  cost  to  liberty. 
In  the  War  of  Independence  there  was  a  distinct 
hope  and  purpose  to  enlarge  individual  liberty.  It 
made  possible  a  confederation  of  the  colonies,  and, 
ultimately,  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  It  gave  to  the  thirteen  colonies  a 
lesson  in  collectivism,  but  it  was  a  needed  lesson 
on  the  necessity  of  combining  their  forces  to  resist 
an  oppressive  external  authority.  The  war  of  1812 
is  properly  called  the  Second  War  of  Independ 
ence,  for  it  was  truly  a  fight  for  liberty  and  for  the 
rights  of  neutrals,  in  resistance  to  the  impressment 
of  seamen  and  other  oppressions  growing  out  of 
European  conflicts.  The  civil  war  of  1861-65  was 
waged,  on  the  side  of  the  North,  primarily,  to  pre 
vent  the  dismemberment  of  the  country,  and,  sec 
ondarily  and  incidentally,  to  destroy  the  institution 
of  slavery.  On  the  Northern  side  it  therefore  called 
forth  a  generous  element  of  popular  ardor  in  de 
fense  of  free  institutions;  and  though  it  tempo 
rarily  caused  centralization  of  great  powers  in  the 
government,  it  did  as  much  to  promote  individual 
freedom  as  it  did  to  strengthen  public  authority. 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civil t 

In  all  this  series  of  fightings  the  main 
were  self-defense,  resistance  to  oppression, 
largement  of  liberty,  and  the  conservatior  <•;  ua- 
tional  acquisitions.  The  war  with  Mexico,  it  is 
true,  was  of  a  wholly  different  type.  That  was  a 
war  of  conquest,  and  of  conquest  chiefly  in  the  in 
terest  of  African  slavery.  It  was  also  an  unjust 
attack  made  by  a  powerful  people  on  a  feeble  one ; 
but  it  lasted  less  than  two  years,  and  the  number 
of  men  engaged  in  it  was  at  no  time  large.  More 
over,  by  the  treaty  which  ended  the  war,  the  con 
quering  nation  agreed  to  pay  the  conquered  eighteen 
million  dollars  in  partial  compensation  for  some  of 
the  territory  wrested  from  it,  instead  of  demanding 
a  huge  war-indemnity,  as  the  European  way  is. 
Its  results  contradicted  the  anticipations  both  of 
those  who  advocated  and  of  those  who  opposed  it. 
It  was  one  of  the  wrongs  which  prepared  the  way 
for  the  great  rebellion;  but  its  direct  evils  were 
of  moderate  extent,  and  it  had  no  effect  on  the  per 
ennial  conflict  between  individual  liberty  and  pub 
lic  power. 

In  the  meantime,  partly  as  the  results  of  Indian 
fighting  and  the  Mexican  war,  but  chiefly  through 
purchases  and  arbitrations,  the  American  people 
had  acquired  a  territory  so  extensive,  so  defended 
by  oceans,  gulfs,  and  great  lakes,  and  so  intersected 
by  those  great  natural  highways,  navigable  rivers, 
that  it  would  obviously  be  impossible  for  any  enemy 
to  overrun  or  subdue  it.  The  civilized  nations  of 
Europe,  western  Asia,  and  northern  Africa  have 
always  been  liable  to  hostile  incursions  from  with- 

6 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

out.  Over  and  over  again  barbarous  hordes  have 
overthrown  established  civilizations ;  and  at  this 
moment  there  is  not  a  nation  of  Europe  which  does 
not  feel  obliged  to  maintain  monstrous  armaments 
for  defense  against  its  neighbors.  The  American 
people  have  long  been  exempt  from  such  terrors, 
and  are  now  absolutely  free  from  this  necessity  of 
keeping  in  readiness  to  meet  heavy  assaults.  The 
absence  of  a  great  standing  army  and  of  a  large 
fleet  has  been  a  main  characteristic  of  the  United 
States,  in  contrast  with  the  other  civilized  nations ; 
this  has  been  a  great  inducement  to  immigration, 
and  a  prime  cause  of  the  country's  rapid  increase 
in  wealth.  The  United  States  have  no  formidable 
neighbor,  except  Great  Britain  in  Canada.  In  April, 
1817,  by  a  convention  made  between  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States,  without  much  public  discus 
sion  or  observation,  these  two  powerful  nations 
agreed  that  each  should  keep  on  the  Great  Lakes 
only  a  few  police  vessels  of  insignificant  size  and 
armament.  This  agreement  was  made  but  four 
years  after  Perry's  naval  victory  on  Lake  Erie,  and 
only  three  years  after  the  burning  of  Washington 
by  a  British  force.  It  was  one  of  the  first  acts  of 
Monroe's  first  administration,  and  it  would  be  diffi 
cult  to  find  in  all  history  a  more  judicious  or  effec 
tual  agreement  between  two  powerful  neighbors. 
For  eighty  years  this  beneficent  convention  has 
helped  to  keep  the  peace.  The  European  way 
would  have  been  to  build  competitive  fleets,  dock 
yards,  and  fortresses,  all  of  which  would  have  helped 
to  bring  on  war  during  the  periods  of  mutual  exas- 

7 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

peration  which  have  occurred  since  1817.  Monroe's 
second  administration  was  signalized,  six  years  later, 
by  the  declaration  that  the  United  States  would 
consider  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  Holy  Al 
liance  to  extend  their  system  to  any  portion  of  this 
hemisphere  as  dangerous  to  the  peace  and  safety 
of  the  United  States.  This  announcement  was  de 
signed  to  prevent  the  introduction  on  the  American 
continent  of  the  horrible  European  system  —  with 
its  balance  of  power,  its  alliances  offensive  and  de 
fensive  in  opposing  groups,  and  its  perpetual  arma 
ments  on  an  enormous  scale.  That  a  declaration 
expressly  intended  to  promote  peace  and  prevent 
armaments  should  now  be  perverted  into  an  argu 
ment  for  arming  and  for  a  belligerent  public  policy 
is  an  extraordinary  perversion  of  the  true  Ameri 
can  doctrine. 

The  ordinary  causes  of  war  between  nation  and 
nation  have  been  lacking  in  America  for  the  last 
century  and  a  quarter.  How  many  wars  in  the 
world's  history  have  been  due  to  contending  dy-  ' 
nasties ;  how  many  of  the  most  cruel  and  pro-  w 
tracted  wars  have  been  due  to  religious  strife ;  how 
many  to  race  hatred!  No  one  of  these  causes  of 
war  has  been  efficacious  in  America  since  the 
French  were  overcome  in  Canada  by  the  English 
in  1759.  Looking  forward  into  the  future,  we  find 
it  impossible  to  imagine  circumstances  under  which 
any  of  these  common  causes  of  war  can  take  effect 
on  the  North  American  continent.  Therefore,  the 
ordinary  motives  for  maintaining  armaments  in 
time  of  peace,  and  concentrating  the  powers  of 

8 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

government  in  such  a  way  as  to  interfere  with  in 
dividual  liberty,  have  not  been  in  play  in  the  United 
States  as  among  the  nations  of  Europe,  and  are 
not  likely  to  be. 

Such  have  been  the  favorable  conditions  under 
which  America  has  made  its  best  contribution  to 
the  progress  of  our  race. 

There  are  some  people  of  a  perverted  sentimen 
tality  who  occasionally  lament  the  absence  in  our 
country  of  the  ordinary  inducements  to  war,  on 
the  ground  that  war  develops  certain  noble  quali 
ties  in  some  of  the  combatantsf-^nci  gives  oppor- 
tunityTorthe  practice  of  heroic  virtues,  such  as 
^mTreuyftj  "^flya-lty,  and  ralf-aggrjfjgg^  Tf.  is  further 
said  that  prolonged  peace  makes  nations  effem 
inate,  luxurious,  and^ate^ialistic^and  substitutes^ 
Tor  tTT^  hjgh_jd(ftg1sj}fjji^  p&triot  solcEer^the  low^ 
Meajs^oTtnVfermer,  manufacturer,  tradesman,  and 
jpleasure-seeker.  This  view  seems  to  me  to  err  in 
two  opposite  ways.  In  the  first  place,  it  forgets 
that  war,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  develops  some 
splendid  virtues,  is  the  most  horrible  occupation 
that  human  beings  can  possibly  engage  in.  It  is 
cruel,  treacherous,  and  murderous.  Defensive  war 
fare,  particularly  on  the  part  of  a  weak  nation 
against  powerful  invaders  or  oppressors,  excites  a 
generous  sympathy ;  but  for  every  heroic  defense 
there  must  be  an  attack  by  a  preponderating  force, 
and  war,  being  the  conflict  of  the  two,  must  be 
judged  by  its  moral  effects  not  on  one  party,  but 
on  both ;  parties.  Moreover,  the  weaker  party  may 
have  the  worse  cause.  The  immediate  ill  effects  of  l| 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

war  are  bad  enough,  but  its  after  effects  are  gen 
erally  worse,  because  indefinitely  prolonged  and  in 
definitely  wasting  and  damaging.  At  this  moment, 
thirty-one  years  after  the  end  of  our  civil  war, 
there  are  two  great  evils  afflicting  our  country 
"which  took  their  rise  in  that  war,  namely,  (1)  the 
belief  of  a  large  proportion  of  our  people  in  money 
without  intrinsic  value,  or  worth  less  than  its  face, 
and  made  current  solely  by  act  of  Congress,  and 
(2)  the  payment  of  immense  annual  sums  in  pen 
sions.  It  is  the  paper-money  delusion  born  of  the 
civil  war  which  generated  and  supports  the  silver- 
money  delusion  of  to-day.  As  a  consequence  of  the 
war,  the  nation  has  paid  $2,000,000,000  in  pensions 
within  thirty-three  years.  So  far  as  pensions  are 
paid  to  disabled  persons,  they  are  a  just  and  inevit 
able,  but  unproductive  expenditure ;  so  far  as  they 
are  paid  to  persons  who  are  not  disabled, — men  or 
women, — they  are  in  the  main  not  only  unproduc 
tive  but  demoralizing ;  so  far  as  they  promote  the 
marriage  of  young  women  to  old  men,  as  a  pecu 
niary  speculation,  they  create  a  grave  social  evil. 
It  is  impossible  to  compute  or  even  imagine  the 
losses  and  injuries  already  inflicted  by  the  fiat- 
money  delusion;  and  we  know  that  some  of  the 
worst  evils  of  the  pension  system  will  go  on  for  a 
hundred  years  to  come,  unless  the  laws  about 
widows'  pensions  are  changed  for  the  better.  It  is 
a  significant  fact  that  of  the  existing  pensioners  of 
the  war  of  1812  only  twenty-one  are  surviving  sol 
diers  or  sailors,  while  3826  are  widows.1 

i  June  30,  1895. 
10 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

War  gratifies,  or  used  to  gratify,  the  combative1 
instinct  of  mankind,  but  it  gratifies  also  the  love 
of  plunder,  destruction,  cruel  discipline,  and  arbi 
trary  power.  It  is  doubtful  whether  fighting  with 
modern  appliances  will  continue  to  gratify  the  sav 
age  instinct  of  combat ;  for  it  is  not  likely  that  in 
the  future  two  opposing  lines  of  men  can  ever  meet, 
or  any  line  or  column  reach  an  enemy's  intrench- 
ments.  The  machine-gun  can  only  be  compared 
to  the  scythe,  which  cuts  off  every  blade  of  grass 
within  its  sweep.  It  has  made  cavalry  charges 
impossible,  just  as  the  modern  ironclad  has  made 
impossible  the  manceuvers  of  one  of  Nelson's  fleets. 
On  land,  the  only  mode  of  approach  of  one  line  to 
another  must  hereafter  be  by  concealment,  crawl 
ing,  or  surprise.  Naval  actions  will  henceforth  be 
conflicts  between  opposing  machines,  guided,  to  be 
sure,  by  men ;  but  it  will  be  the  best  machine  that 
wins,  and  not  necessarily  the  most  enduring  men. 
War  will  become  a  contest  between  treasuries  or 
war-chests ;  for  now  that  10,000  men  can  fire  away 
a  million  dollars'  worth  of  ammunition  in  an  hour, 
no  poor  nation  can  long  resist  a  rich  one,  unless 
there  be  some  extraordinary  difference  between  the 
two  in  mental  and  moral  strength. 

The  view  that  war  is  desirable  omits  also  the 
consideration  that  modern  social  and  industrial  life 
affords  ample  opportunities  for  the  courageous  and 
loyal  discharge  of  duty,  apart  from  the  barbarities 
of  warfare.  There  are  many  serviceable  occupa 
tions  in  civil  life  which  call  for  all  the  courage  and 
fidelity  of  the  best  soldier,  and  for  more  than  his 

ii 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

independent  responsibility,  because  not  pursued  in 
masses  or  under  the  immediate  command  of  supe 
riors.  Such  occupations  are  those  of  the  locomo 
tive  engineer,  the  electric  lineman,  the  railroad 
brakernan,  the  city  fireman,  and  the  policeman. 
The  occupation  of  the  locomotive  engineer  requires 
constantly  a  high  degree  of  skill,  alertness,  fidelity, 
and  resolution,  and  at  any  moment  may  call  for 
heroic  self-forgetfulness.  The  occupation  of  a  line 
man  requires  all  the  courage  and  endurance  of  a 
soldier,  whose  lurking  foe  is  mysterious  and  invisi 
ble.  In  the  two  years,  1893  and  1894,  there  were 
34,000  trainmen  killed  and  wounded  on  the  rail 
roads  of  the  United  States,  and  25,000  other  rail 
road  employes  besides.  I  need  not  enlarge  on  the 
dangers  of  the  fireman's  occupation,  or  on  the  dis 
ciplined  gallantry  with  which  its  risks  are  habitu 
ally  incurred.  The  policeman  in  large  cities  needs 
every  virtue  of  the  best  soldier,  for  in  the  discharge 
of  many  of  his  most  important  duties  he  is  alone. 
Even  the  feminine  occupation  of  the  trained  nurse 
illustrates  every  heroic  quality  which  can  possibly 
be  exhibited  in  war ;  for  she,  simply  in  the  way  of 
duty,  without  the  stimulus  of  excitement  or  com 
panionship,  runs  risks  from  which  many  a  soldier 
in  hot  blood  would  shrink.  No  one  need  be  anxious 
about  the  lack  of  opportunities  in  civilized  life  for 
the  display  of  heroic  qualities.  New  industries 
demand  new  forms  of  fidelity  and  self-sacrificing 
devotion.  Every  generation  develops  some  new 
kind  of  hero.  Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  that  the 
"  scab  w  is  a  creditable  type  of  nineteenth  century 

12 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

hero?  In  defense  of  his  rights  as  an  individual, 
he  deliberately  incurs  the  reprobation  of  many  of 
his  fellows,  and  runs  the  immediate  risk  of  bodily 
injury,  or  even  of  death.  He  also  risks  his  liveli 
hood  for  the  future,  and  thereby  the  well-being  of 
his  family.  He  steadily  asserts  in  action  his  right 
to  work  on  such  conditions  as  he  sees  fit  to  make, 
and,  in  so  doing,  he  exhibits  remarkable  courage, 
and  renders  a  great  service  to  his  fellow-men.  He 
is  generally  a  quiet,  unpretending,  silent  person, 
who  values  his  personal  freedom  more  than  the 
society  and  approbation  of  his  mates.  Often  he  is 
impelled  to  work  by  family  affection,  but  this  fact 
does  not  diminish  his  heroism.  There  are  file- 
closers  behind  the  line  of  battle  of  the  bravest 
regiment.  Another  modern  personage  who  needs 
heroic  endurance,  and  often  exhibits  it,  is  the  pub 
lic  servant  who  steadily  does  his  duty  against  the 
outcry  of  a  party  press  bent  on  perverting  his 
every  word  and  act.  Through  the  telegram,  cheap 
postage,  and  the  daily  newspaper,  the  forces  of 
hasty  public  opinion  can  now  be  concentrated  and 
expressed  with  a  rapidity  and  intensity  unknown 
to  preceding  generations.  In  consequence,  the  in 
dependent  thinker  or  actor,  or  the  public  servant, 
when  his  thoughts  or  acts  run  counter  to  prevail 
ing  popular  or  party  opinions,  encounters  sudden 
and  intense  obloquy,  which,  to  many  temperaments, 
is  very  formidable.  That  habit  of  submitting  to  the 
opinion  of  the  majority  which  democracy  fosters 
renders  the  storm  of  detraction  and  calumny  all  the 
more  difficult  to  endure — makes  it,  indeed,  so  in- 

15 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

tolerable  to  many  citizens,  that  they  will  conceal 
or  modify  their  opinions  rather  than  endure  it. 
Yet  the  very  breath  of  life  for  a  democracy  is  free 
discussion,  and  the  taking  account,  of  all  opinions 
honestly  held  and  reasonably  expressed.  The  un 
reality  of  the  vilification  of  public  men  in  the 
modern  press  is  often  revealed  by  the  sudden 
change  when  an  eminent  public  servant  retires  or 
dies.  A  man  for  whom  no  words  of  derision  or 
condemnation  were  strong  enough  yesterday  is 
recognized  to-morrow  as  an  honorable  and  ser 
viceable  person,  and  a  credit  to  his  country.  Nev 
ertheless,  this  habit  of  partizan  ridicule  and  de 
nunciation  in  the  daily  reading-matter  of  millions 
of  people  calls  for  a  new  kind  of  courage  and 
toughness  in  public  men,  and  calls  for  it,  not  in 
brief  moments  of  excitement  only,  but  steadily, 
year  in  and  year  out.  Clearly,  there  is  no  need  of 
bringing  on  wars  in  order  to  breed  heroes.  Civil 
ized  life  affords  plenty  of  opportunities  for  heroes, 
and  for  a  better  kind  than  war  or  any  other  sav 
agery  has  ever  produced.  Moreover,  none  but 
lunatics  would  set  a  city  on  fire  in  order  to  give 
opportunities  for  heroism  to  firemen,  or  introduce 
the  cholera  or  yellow  fever  to  give  physicians  and 
nurses  opportunity  for  practising  disinterested 
devotion,  or  condemn  thousands  of  people  to  ex 
treme  poverty  in  order  that  some  well-to-do  per 
sons  might  practise  a  beautiful  charity.  It  is 
equally  crazy  to  advocate  war  on  the  ground  that 
it  is  a  school  for  heroes. 
Another  misleading  argument  for  war  needs  brief 

14 


•  'tuitions  to  Civilisation 
Five  American  Contributions  to 


notice.  It  is  said  that  war  is  a  school  of  national 
development  —  that  a  nation,  when  conducting  a 
great  war,  puts  forth  prodigious  exertions  to  raise 
money,  supply  munitions,  enlist  troops,  and  keep 
them  in  the  field,  and  often  gets  a  clearer  concep 
tion  and  a  better  control  of  its  own  material  and 
moral  forces  while  making  these  unusual  exertions. 
The  nation  which  means  to  live  in  peace  necessarily 
foregoes,  it  is  said,  these  valuable  opportunities  of 
abnormal  activity.  Naturally,  such  a  nation's  ab 
normal  activities  devoted  to  destruction  would  be 
diminished  ;  but  its  normal  and  abnormal  activities 
devoted  to  construction  and  improvement  ought  to 
increase. 

One  great  reason  for  the  rapid  development  of 
the  United  States  since  the  adoption  of  the  Con 
stitution  is  the  comparative  exemption  of  the  whole 
people  from  war,  dread  of  war,  and  preparations 
for  war.  The  energies  of  the  people  have  been 
directed  into  other  channels.  The  progress  of  ap 
plied  science  during  the  present  century,  and  the 
new  ideals  concerning  the  well-being  of  human 
multitudes,  have  opened  great  fields  for  the  useful 
application  of  national  energy.  This  immense  ter 
ritory  of  ours,  stretching  from  ocean  to  ocean,  and 
for  the  most  part  but  imperfectly  developed  and 
sparsely  settled,  affords  a  broad  field  for  the  benefi 
cent  application  of  the  richest  national  forces  dur 
ing  an  indefinite  period.  There  is  no  department 
of  national  activity  in  which  we  could  not  advan 
tageously  put  forth  much  more  force  than  we  now 
expend  ;  and  .there  are  great  fields  which  we  have 


.0.«'?  American  Contributions  to 


cultivated  at  all.  As  examples,  I  may  men 
tion  the  post-office,  national  sanitation,  public 
works,  and  education.  Although  great  improve 
ments  have  been  made  during  the  past  fifty  years 
in  the  collection  and  delivery  of  mail  matter,  much 
still  remains  to  be  done  both  in  city  and  country, 
and  particularly  in  the  country.  In  the  mail  fa 
cilities  secured  to  our  people,  we  are  far  behind  sev 
eral  European  governments,  whereas  we  ought  to 
be  far  in  advance  of  every  European  government 
except  Switzerland,  since  the  rapid  interchange  / 
of  ideas,  and  the  promotion  of  family,  friendly, 
and  commercial  intercourse,  are  of  more  import-/ 
ance  to  a  democracy  than  to  any  other  form  of 
political  society.  Our  national  government  takes 
very  little  pains  about  the  sanitation  of  the  coun 
try,  or  its  deliverance  from  injurious  insects  and 
parasites ;  yet  these  are  matters  of  gravest  interest, 
with  which  only  the  general  government  can  deal, 
because  action  by  separate  States  or  cities  is  neces 
sarily  ineffectual.  To  fight  pestilences  needs  quite 
as  much  energy,  skill,  and  courage  as  to  carry  on 
war ;  indeed,  the  foes  are  more  insidious  and  awful, 
and  the  means  of  resistance  less  obvious.  On  the 
average  and  the  large  scale,  the  professions  which 
heal  and  prevent  disease,  and  mitigate  suffering, 
call  for  much  more  ability,  constancy,  and  devo 
tion  than  the  professions  which  inflict  wounds  and 
death  and  all  sorts  of  human  misery.  Our  govern 
ment  has  never  touched  the  important  subject  of 
national  roads,  by  which  I  mean  not  railroads,  but 
common  highways ;  yet  here  is  a  great  subject  for 

16 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

beneficent  action  through  government,  in  which  we 
need  only  go  for  our  lessons  to  little  republican 
Switzerland.  Inundations  and  droughts  are  great 
enemies  of  the  human  race,  against  which  govern 
ment  ought  to  create  defenses,  because  private  en 
terprise  cannot  cope  with  such  wide-spreading 
evils.  Popular  education  is  another  great  field  in 
which  public  activity  should  be  indefinitely  en 
larged,  not  so  much  through  the  action  of  the  Fed 
eral  government, —  though  even  there  a  much  more 
effective  supervision  should  be  provided  than  now 
exists, —  but  through  the  action  of  States,  cities, 
and  towns.  We  have  hardly  begun  to  apprehend 
the  fundamental  necessity  and  infinite  value  of 
public  education,  or  to  appreciate  the  immense  ad 
vantages  to  be  derived  from  additional  expendi 
ture  for  it.  What  prodigious  possibilities  of  im 
provement  are  suggested  by  the  single  statement 
that  the  average  annual  expenditure  for  the  school 
ing  of  a  child  in  the  United  States  is  only  about 
eighteen  dollars !  Here  is  a  cause  which  requires 
from  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  and  women 
keen  intelligence,  hearty  devotion  to  duty,  and  a 
steady  uplifting  and  advancement  of  all  its  stan 
dards  and  ideals.  The  system  of  public  instruction 
should  embody  for  coming  generations  all  the  vir 
tues  of  the  medieval  church.  It  should  stand  for 
the  brotherhood  and  unity  of  all  classes  and  condi 
tions;  it  should  exalt  the  joys  of  the  intellectual 
life  above  all  material  delights ;  and  it  should  pro 
duce  the  best  constituted  and  most  wisely  directed 
intellectual  and  moral  host  that  the  world  has  seen. 

•7 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

In  view  of  such  unutilized  opportunities  as  these 
for  the  beneficent  application  of  great  public  forces, 
does  it  not  seem  monstrous  that  war  should  be  ad 
vocated  on  the  ground  that  it  gives  occasion  for 
rallying  and  using  the  national  energies  ? 

The  second  eminent  contribution  which  the 
United  States  have  made  to  civilization  is  their 
thorough  acceptance,  in  theory  and  practice,  of  the 
widest  religious  toleration.  As  a  means  of  sup 
pressing  individual  liberty,  the  collective  authority 
of  the  Church,  when  elaborately  organized  in  a 
hierarchy  directed  by  one  head  and  absolutely  de 
voted  in  every  rank  to  its  service,  comes  next  in 
proved  efficiency  to  that  concentration  of  powers 
in  government  which  enables  it  to  carry  on  war 
effectively.  The  Western  Christian  Church,  or 
ganized  under  the  Bishop  of  Koine,  acquired,  dur 
ing  the  middle  ages,  a  centralized  authority  which 
quite  overrode  both  the  temporal  ruler  and  the 
rising  spirit  of  nationality.  For  a  time  Christian 
Church  and  Christian  State  acted  together,  just  as 
in  Egypt,  during  many  earlier  centuries,  the  great 
powers  of  civil  and  religious  rule  had  been  united. 
The  Crusades  marked  the  climax  of  the  power  of 
the  Church.  Thereafter,  Church  and  State  were 
often  in  conflict;  and  during  this  prolonged  con 
flict  the  seeds  of  liberty  were  planted,  took  root, 
and  made  some  sturdy  growth.  We  can  see  now, 
as  we  look  back  on  the  history  of  Europe,  how  for 
tunate  it  was  that  the  colonization  of  North  Amer 
ica  by  Europeans  was  deferred  until  after  the  pe 
riod  of  the  Reformation,  and  especially  until  after 

18 


I 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 


the  Elizabethan  period  in  England,  the  Luther 
period  in  G-ermany,  and  the  splendid  struggle  of 
the  Dutch  for  liberty  in  Holland.  The  founders 
of  New  England  and  New  York  were  men  who  had 
imbibed  the  principles  of  resistance  both  to  arbi 
trary  civil  power  and  to  universal  ecclesiastical 
authority.  Hence  it  came  about  that  within  the 
territory  now  covered  by  the  United  States  no 
single  ecclesiastical  organization  ever  obtained  a 
wide  and  oppressive  control,  and  that  in  different 
parts  of  this  great  region  churches  very  unlike  in 
doctrine  and  organization  were  almost  simultane 
ously  established.  It  has  been  an  inevitable  con 
sequence  of  this  condition  of  things  that  the 
Church,  as  a  whole,  in  the  United  States  has  not 
been  an  effective  opponent  of  any  form  of  human 
rights.  For  generations  it  has  been  divided  into 
numerous  sects  and  denominations,  no  one  of 
which  has  been  able  to  claim  more  than  a  tenth  of 
the  population  as  its  adherents ;  and  the  practices 
of  these  numerous  denominations  have  been  pro 
foundly  modified  by  political  theories  and  prac 
tices,  and  by  social  customs  natural  to  new  com 
munities  formed  under  the  prevailing  conditions 
of  free  intercourse  and  rapid  growth.  The  consti 
tutional  prohibition  of  religious  tests  as  qualifica 
tions  for  office  gave  the  United  States  the  leader 
ship  among  the  nations  in  dissociating  theological 
opinions  and  political  rights.  No  one  denomina 
tion  or  ecclesiastical  organization  in  the  United 
States  has  held  great  properties,  or  has  had  the 
means  of  conducting  its  ritual  with  costly  pomp  or 

'9 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

its  charitable  works  with  imposing  liberality.  No 
splendid  architectural  exhibitions  of  Church  power 
have  interested  or  overawed  the  population.  On 
the  contrary,  there  has  prevailed  in  general  a  great 
simplicity  in  public  worship,  until  very  recent  years. 
Some  splendors  have  been  lately  developed  by  re 
ligious  bodies  in  the  great  cities;  but  these  splen 
dors  and  luxuries  have  been  almost  simultaneously 
exhibited  by  religious  bodies  of  very  different,  not 
to  say  opposite,  kinds.  Thus,  in  New  York  city, 
the  Jews,  the  Greek  Church,  the  Catholics,  and  the 
Episcopalians  have  all  erected,  or  undertaken  to 
erect,  magnificent  edifices.  But  these  recent  dem 
onstrations  of  wealth  and  zeal  are  so  distributed 
among  differing  religious  organizations  that  they 
cannot  be  imagined  to  indicate  a  corning  centrali 
zation  of  ecclesiastical  influence  adverse  to  indi 
vidual  liberty. 

*  In  the  United  States,  the  great  principle  of  reli 
gious  toleration  is  better  understood  and  more  firmly 
established  than  in  any  other  nation  of  the  earth. 
It  is  not  only  embodied  in  legislation,  but  also 
completely  recognized  in  the  habits  and  customs 
of  good  society.  Elsewhere  it  may  be  a  long  road 
from  legal  to  social  recognition  of  religious  liberty, 
as  the  example  of  England  shows.  This  recogni 
tion  alone  would  mean,  to  any  competent  student 
of  history,  that  the  United  States  had  made  an  un 
exampled  contribution  to  the  reconciliation  of  just 
governmental  power  with  just  freedom  for  the  in 
dividual,  inasmuch  as  the  partial  establishment  of 
religious  toleration  has  been  the  main  work  of  civ- 

20 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civiliation 


ilization  during  the  past  four  centuries.  In  view 
of  this  characteristic  and  infinitely  beneficent  con 
tribution  to  human  happiness  and  progress,  how 
pitiable  seem  the  temporary  outbursts  of  bigotry 
and  fanaticism  which  have  occasionally  marred  the 
fair  record  of  our  country  in  regard  to  religious 
toleration  !  If  any  one  imagines  that  this  Ameri 
can  contribution  to  civilization  is  no  longer  im 
portant,  —  that  the  victory  for  toleration  has  been 
already  won,  —  let  him  recall  the  fact  that  the  last 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century  have  witnessed 
two  horrible  religious  persecutions,  one  by  a  Chris 
tian  nation,  the  other  by  a  Moslem  —  one,  -of  the 
Jews  by  Russia,  and  the  other,  of  the  Armenians 
by  Turkey. 

The  third  characteristic  contribution  which  the 
United  States  have  made  to  civilization  has  been 
the  safe  development  of  a  manhood  -suffrage  nearly 
universal.  The  experience  of  the  United  States 
has  brought  out  several  principles  with  regard  to 
the  suffrage  which  have  not  been  clearly  appre 
hended  by  some  eminent  political  philosophers. 
In  the  first  place,  American  experience  has  demon 
strated  the  advantages  of  a  gradual  approach  to 
universal  suffrage,  over  a  sudden  leap.  Universal 
suffrage  is  not  the  first  and  only  means  of  attain 
ing  democratic  government  ;  rather,  it  is  the  ulti 
mate  goal  of  successful  democracy.  It  is  not  a 
specific  for  the  cure  of  all  political  ills  ;  on  the  con 
trary,  it  mav  i*«elf  easily  be  the  source  of  great 
politi  1  3  people  of  the  United  States  feel 

its  da  When  constituencies  are  large, 

21 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

it  aggravates  the  well-known  difficulties  of  party 
government ;  so  that  many  of  the  ills  which  threaten 
democratic  communities  at  this  moment,  whether 
in  Europe  or  America,  proceed  from  the  break 
down  of  party  government  rather  than  from  fail 
ures  of  universal  suffrage.  The  methods  of  party 
government  were  elaborated  where  suffrage  was 
limited  and  constituencies  were  small.  Manhood 
suffrage  has  not  worked  perfectly  well  in  the  United 
States,  or  in  any  other  nation  where  it  has  been 
adopted,  and  it  is  not  likely  very  soon  to  work  per 
fectly  anywhere.  It  is  like  freedom  of  the  will  for 
the  individual  —  the  only  atmosphere  in  which 
virtue  can  grow,  but  an  atmosphere  in  which  sin 
can  also  grow.  Like  freedom  of  the  will,  it  needs 
to  be  surrounded  with  checks  and  safeguards,  par 
ticularly  in  the  childhood  of  the  nation ;  but,  like 
freedom  of  the  will,  it  is  the  supreme  good,  the  goal 
of  perfected  democracy.  Secondly,  like  freedom  of 
the  will,  universal  suffrage  has  an  educational  effect, 
which  has  been  mentioned  by  many  writers,  but  has 
seldom  been 'clearly  apprehended  or  adequately  de 
scribed.  This  educational  effect  is  produced  in  two 
ways :  In  the  first  place,  the  combination  of  indi 
vidual  freedom  with  social  mobility,  which  a  wide 
suffrage  tends  to  produce,  permits  the  capable  to 
rise  through  all  grades  of  society,  even  within  a 
single  generation;  and  this  freedom  to  rise  is  in- 
.f  tensely  stimulating  to  personal  ambition.  Thus 
|  every  capable  American,  from  youth  to  age,  is  bent 
on  bettering  himself  and  his  condition.  Nothing 
can  be  more  striking  than  the  contrast  between  the 

22 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

mental  condition  of  an  average  American  belong 
ing  to  the  laborious  classes,  but  conscious  that  he 
can  rise  to  the  top  of  the  social  scale,  and  that  of  a 
European  mechanic,  peasant,  or  tradesman,  who 
knows  that  he  cannot  rise  out  of  his  class,  and  is 
content  with  his  hereditary  classification.  The  state 
of  mind  of  the  American  prompts  to  constant 
struggle  for  self-improvement  and  the  acquisition 
of  all  sorts  of  property  and  power.  In  the  sec 
ond  place,  it  is  a  direct  effect  of  a  broad  suffrage 
that  the  voters  become  periodically  interested  in 
the  discussion  of  grave  public  problems,  which 
carry  their  minds  away  from  the  routine  of  their 
daily  labor  and  household  experience  out  into  larger 
fields.  The  instrumentalities  of  this  prolonged  edu 
cation  have  been  multiplied  and  improved  enor 
mously  within  the  last  fifty  years.  In  no  field  of 
human  endeavor  have  the  fruits  of  the  introduc 
tion  of  steam  and  electrical  power  been  more  strik 
ing  than  in  the  methods  of  reaching  multitudes 
of  people  with  instructive  narratives,  expositions, 
and  arguments.  The  multiplication  of  newspapers, 
magazines,  and  books  is  only  one  of  the  immense 
developments  in  the  means  of  reaching  the  people. 
The  advocates  of  any  public  cause  now  have  it  in 
their  power  to  provide  hundreds  of  newspapers 
with  the  same  copy,  or  the  same  plates,  for  simul 
taneous  issue.  The  mails  provide  the  means  of  cir 
culating  millions  of  leaflets  and  pamphlets.  The 
interest  in  the  minds  of  the  people  which  prompts 
to  the  reading  of  these  multiplied  communications 
'.comes  from  the  frequently  recurring  elections.  The 

23 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

more  difficult  the  intellectual  problem  presented  in 
any  given  election,  the  more  educative  the  effect  of 
the  discussion.  Many  modern  industrial  and  finan 
cial  problems  are  extremely  difficult,  even  for  highly- 
educated  men.  As  subjects  of  earnest  thought  and 
discussion  on  the  farm,  and  in  the  work-shop,  fac 
tory,  rolling-mill,  and  mine,  they  supply  a  mental 
training  for  millions  of  adults,  the  like  of  which  has 
never  before  been  seen  in  the  world. 

In  these  discussions,  it  is  not  only  the  receptive 
masses  that  are  benefited ;  the  classes  that  supply 
the  appeals  to  the  masses  are  also  benefited  in  a 
high  degree.  There  is  no  better  mental  exercise  for 
the  most  highly  trained  man  than  the  effort  to  ex 
pound  a  difficult  subject  in  so  clear  a  way  that  the 
untrained  man  can  understand  it.  In  a  republic  in 
which  the  final  appeal  is  to  manhood  suffrage,  the 
educated  minority  of  the  people  is  constantly  stim 
ulated  to  exertion,  by  the  instinct  of  self-preser 
vation  as  well  as  by  love  of  country.  They  see 
dangers  in  proposals  made  to  universal  suffrage, 
and  they  must  exert  themselves  to  ward  off  those 
dangers.  The  position  of  the  educated  and  well-to- 
do  classes  is  a  thoroughly  wholesome  one  in  this 
respect:  they  cannot  depend  for  the  preservation 
of  their  advantages  on  land-owning,  hereditary 
privilege,  or  any  legislation  not  equally  applicable 
to  the  poorest  and  humblest  citizen.  They  must 
maintain  their  superiority  by  being  superior.  They 
cannot  live  in  a  too  safe  corner. 

I  touch  here  on  a  misconception  which  underlies 
much  of  the  criticism  of  universal  suffrage.  It  is 

24 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

commonly  said  that  the  rule  of  the  majority  must 
be  the  rule  of  the  most  ignorant  and  incapable,  the 
multitude  being  necessarily  uninstructed  as  to  tax 
ation,  public  finance,  and  foreign  relations,  and 
untrained  to  active  thought  on  such  difficult  sub 
jects.  Now,  universal  suffrage  is  merely  a  conven 
tion  as  to  where  the  last  appeal  shall  lie  for  the' 
decision  of  public  questions ;  and  it  is  the  rule  of 
the  majority  only  in  this  sense.  The  educated 
classes  are  undoubtedly  a  minority;  but  it  is  not 
safe  to  assume  that  they  monopolize  the  good 
sense  of  the  community.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
very  clear  that  native  good  judgment  and  good 
feeling  are  not  proportional  to  education,  and  that 
among  a  multitude  of  men  who  have  only  an  ele 
mentary  education,  a  large  proportion  will  possess 
both  good  judgment  and  good  feeling.  Indeed, 
persons  who  can  neither  read  nor  write  may  pos 
sess  a  large  share  of  both,  as  is  constantly  seen  in 
regions  where  the  opportunities  for  education  in 
childhood  have  been  scanty  or  inaccessible.  It  is 
not  to  be  supposed  that  the  cultivated  classes,  un 
der  a  regime  of  universal  suffrage,  are  not  going  to 
try  to  make  their  cultivation  felt  in  the  discussion 
and  disposal  of  public  questions.  Any  result  under 
universal  suffrage  is  a  complex  effect  of  the  discus 
sion  of  the  public  question  in  hand  by  the  educated 
classes  in  the  presence  of  the  comparatively  uned 
ucated,  when  a  majority  of  both  classes  taken  to 
gether  is  ultimately  to  settle  the  question.  In 
practice,  both  classes  divide  on  almost  every  issue. 
But,  in  any  case,  if  the  educated  classes  cannot 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

hold  their  own  with  the  uneducated,  by  means  of 
their  superior  physical,  mental,  and  moral  quali 
ties,  they  are  obviously  unfit  to  lead  society.  With 
education  should  come  better  powers  of  argument 
and  persuasion,  a  stricter  sense  of  honor,  and  a 
greater  general  effectiveness.  With  these  advan 
tages,  the  educated  classes  must  undoubtedly  ap 
peal  to  the  less  educated,  and  try  to  convert  them 
to  their  way  of  thinking;  but  this  is  a  process 
which  is  good  for  both  sets  of  people.  Indeed,  it  is 
the  best  possible  process  for  the  training  of  freemen, 
educated  or  uneducated,  rich  or  poor. 

It  is  often  assumed  that  the  educated  classes  be 
come  impotent  in  a  democracy,  because  the  represen 
tatives  of  those  classes  are  not  exclusively  chosen 
to  public  office.  This  argument  is  a  very  fallacious 
one.  It  assumes  that  the  public  offices  are  the  places 

-  of  greatest  influence ;  whereas,  in  the  United  States, 
at  least,  that  is  conspicuously  not  the  case.  In  a 
democracy,  it  is  important  to  discriminate  influence 

"from  authority.  Rulers  and  magistrates  may  or 
may  not  be  persons  of  influence ;  but  many  per 
sons  of  influence  never  become  rulers,  magistrates, 
or  representatives  in  parliaments  or  legislatures. 
The  complex  industries  of  a  modern  state,  and  its 
innumerable  corporation  services,  offer  great  fields 
for  administrative  talent  which  were  entirely  un 
known  to  preceding  generations;  and  these  new 
activities  attract  many  ambitious  and  capable  men 
more  strongly  than  the  public  service.  These  men 
are  not  on  that  account  lost  to  their  country  or  to 
society.  The  present  generation  has  wholly  escaped 

26 

\ 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

from  the  conditions  of  earlier  centuries,  when  able 
men  who  were  not  great  land-owners  had  but  three 
outlets  for  their  ambition  —  the  army,  the  church, 
or  the  national  civil  service.  The  national  service, 
whether  in  an  empire,  a  limited  monarchy,  or  a 
republic,  is  now  only  one  of  many  fields  which 
offer  to  able  and  patriotic  men  an  honorable  and 
successful  career.  Indeed,  legislation  and  public 
administration  necessarily  have  a  very  second 
hand  quality;  and  more  and  more  legislators  and 
administrators  become  dependent  on  the  researches 
of  scholars,  men  of  science,  and  historians,  and  fol 
low  in  the  footsteps  of  inventors,  economists,  and 
political  philosophers.  Political  leaders  are  very 
seldom  leaders  of  thought ;  they  are  generally  try- 
Ing  to  induce  masses  of  men  to  act  on  principles 
thought  out  long  before.  Their  skill  is  in  the  se 
lection  of  practicable  approximations  to  the  ideal ; 
their  arts  are  arts  of  exposition  and  persuasion ; 
their  honor  comes  from  fidelity  under  trying  cir 
cumstances  to  familiar  principles  of  public  duty. 
The  real  leaders  of  American  thought  in  this  cen 
tury  have  been  preachers,  teachers,  jurists,  seers, 
and  poets.  While  it  is  of  the  highest  importance, 
under  any  form  of  government,  that  the  public  ser 
vants  should  be  men  of  intelligence,  education,  and 
honor,  it  is  no  objection  to  any  given  form,  that 
under  it  large  numbers  of  educated  and  honorable 
citizens  have  no  connection  with  the  public  service. 
Well-to-do  Europeans,  when  reasoning  about  the 
working  of  democracy,  often  assume  that  under 
any  government  the  property-holders  are  synony- 

27 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

mous  with  the  intelligent  and  educated  class.  That 
is  not  the  case  in  the  American  democracy.  Any 
one  who  has  been  connected  with  a  large  American 
university  can  testify  that  democratic  institutions 
produce  plenty  of  rich  people  who  are  not  educated 
and  plenty  of  educated  people  who  are  not  rich, 
just  as  medieval  society  produced  illiterate  nobles 
and  cultivated  monks. 

Persons  who  object  to  manhood  suffrage  as  the 
last  resort  for  the  settlement  of  public  questions 
are  bound  to  show  where,  in  all  the  world,  a  juster 
or  more  practicable  regulation  or  convention  has 
been  arrived  at.  The  objectors  ought  at  least  to 
indicate  where  the  ultimate  decision  should,  in  their 
judgment,  rest— as,  for  example,  with  the  land 
owners,  or  the  property-holders,  or  the  graduates  of 
secondary  schools,  or  the  professional  classes.  He 
would  be  a  bold  political  philosopher  who,  in  these 
days,  should  propose  that  the  ultimate  tribunal 
should  be  constituted  in  any  of  these  ways.  All 
the  experience  of  the  civilized  world  fails  to  indi 
cate  a  safe  personage,  a  safe  class,  or  a  safe  minor 
ity,  with  which  to  deposit  this  power  of  ultimate 
decision.  On  the  contrary,  the  experience  of  civili 
zation  indicates  that  no  select  person  or  class  can 
be  trusted  with  that  power,  no  matter  what  the 
principle  of  selection.  The  convention  that  the 
majority  of  males  shall  decide  public  questions 
has  obviously  great  recommendations.  It  is  appar 
ently  fairer  than  the  rule  of  any  minority,  and  it  is 
sure  to  be  supported  by  an  adequate  physical  force. 
Moreover,  its  decisions  are  likely  to  enforce  them- 

28 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

selves.  Even  in  matters  of  doubtful  prognostica 
tion,  the  fact  that  a  majority  of  the  males  do  the 
prophesying  tends  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy. 
At  any  rate,  the  adoption  or  partial  adoption  of 
universal  male  suffrage  by  several  civilized  nations 
is  coincident  with  unexampled  ameliorations  in  the 
condition  of  the  least  fortunate  and  most  numerous 
classes  of  the  population.  To  this  general  amelio 
ration  many  causes  have  doubtless  contributed; 
but  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  acquisition 
of  the  power  which  comes  with  votes  has  had  some 
thing  to  do  with  it. 

Timid  or  conservative  people  often  stand  aghast 
at  the  possible  directions  of  democratic  desire,  or 
at  some  of  the  predicted  results  of  democratic  rule; 
but  meantime  the  actual  experience  of  the  Ameri 
can  democracy  proves :  1,  that  property  has  never 
been  safer  under  any  form  of  government ;  2,  that 
no  people  have  ever  welcomed  so  ardently  new 
machinery,  and  new  inventions  generally ;  3,  that 
religious  toleration  was  never  carried  so  far,  and 
never  so  universally  accepted;  4,  that  nowhere 
have  the  power  and  disposition  to  read  been  so 
general ;  5,  that  nowhere  has  governmental  power 
been  more  adequate,  or  more  freely  exercised,  to 
levy  and  collect  taxes,  to  raise  armies  and  to  dis 
band  them,  to  maintain  public  order,  and  to  pay 
off  great  public  debts  —  national,  State,  and  town ; 
6,  that  nowhere  have  property  and  well-being  been 
so  widely  diffused ;  and  7,  that  no  form  of  govern 
ment  ever  inspired  greater  affection  and  loyalty,  or 
prompted  to  greater  personal  sacrifices  in  supreme 

29 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

moments.  In  view  of  these  solid  facts,  specula 
tions  as  to  what  universal  suffrage  would  have 
done  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries, 
or  may  do  in  the  twentieth,  seem  futile  indeed.  The 
most  civilized  nations  of  the  world  have  all  either 
adopted  this  final  appeal  to  manhood  suffrage,  or 
they  are  approaching  that  adoption  by  rapid  stages. 
The  United  States,  having  no  customs  or  traditions 
of  an  opposite  sort  to  overcome,  have  led  the  na 
tions  in  this  direction,  and  have  had  the  honor  of 
devising,  as  a  result  of  practical  experience,  the 
best  safeguards  for  universal  suffrage,  safeguards 
which,  in  the  main,  are  intended  to  prevent  hasty' 
public  action,  or  action  based  on  sudden  discon 
tents  or  temporary  spasms  of  public  feeling.  These 
checks  are  intended  to  give  time  for  discussion  and 
deliberation,  or,  in  other  words,  to  secure  the  en 
lightenment  of  the  voters  before  the  vote.  If,  un 
der  new  conditions,  existing  safeguards  prove  in 
sufficient,  the  only  wise  course  is  to  devise  new 
safeguards. 

The  United  States  have  made  to  civilization 
a  fourth  contribution  of  a  very  hopeful  sort,  to 
which  public  attention  needs  to  be  directed,  lest 
temporary  evils  connected  therewith  should  pre 
vent  the  continuation  of  this  beneficent  action. 
The  United  States  have  furnished  a  demonstration 
that  people  belonging  to  a  great  variety  of  races  or 
nations  are,  under  favorable  circumstances,  fit  for 
political  freedom.  It  is  the  fashion  to  attribute  t« 
the  enormous  immigration  of  the  last  fifty  year 
some  of  the  failures  of  the  American  political  sys 

3° 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

tern,  and  particularly  the  American  failure  in  mu 
nicipal  government,  and  the  introduction  in  a  few 
States  of  the  rule  of  the  irresponsible  party  fore 
men  known  as  "  bosses."  •"  Impatient  of  these  evils, 
and  hastily  accepting  this  improbable  explanation 
of  them,  some  people  wish  to  depart  from  the  Am 
erican  policy  of  welcoming  immigrants.  In  two 
respects  the  absorption  of  large  numbers  of  im 
migrants  from  many  nations  into  the  American 
commonwealth  has  been  of  great  service  to  man 
kind.  In  the  first  place,  it  has  demonstrated  that 
people  who  at  home  have  been  subject  to  every 
sort  of  aristocratic  or  despotic  or  military  oppres 
sion  become  within  less  than  a  generation  service 
able  citizens  of  a  republic ;  and,  in  the  second  place, 
the  United  States  have  thus  educated  to  freedom 
many  millions  of  men.  Furthermore,  the  compara 
tively  high  degree  of  happiness  and  prosperity  en 
joyed  by  the  people  of  the  United  States  has  been 
brought  home  to  multitudes  in  Europe  by  friends 
and  relatives  who  have  emigrated  to  this  country, 
and  has  commended  free  institutions  to  them  in 
the  best  possible  way.  This  is  a  legitimate  propa 
ganda  vastly  more  effective  than  any  annexation 
or  conquest  of  unwilling  people,  or  of  people  un 
prepared  for  liberty. 

It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  process 
of  assimilating  foreigners  began  in  this  century. 
The  eighteenth  century  provided  the  colonies  with 
a  great  mixture  of  peoples,  although  the  English 
race  predominated  then,  as  now.  When  the  Revo 
lution  broke  out,  there  were  already  English,  Irish, 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

Scotch,  Dutch,  Germans,  French,  Portuguese,  and 
Swedes  in  the  colonies.  The  French  were,  to  be 
sure,  in  small  proportion,  and  were  almost  exclu 
sively  Huguenot  refugees,  but  they  were  a  valua 
ble  element  in  the  population.  The  Germans  were 
well  diffused,  having  established  themselves  in  New 
York,  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  and  Georgia.  The 
Scotch  were  scattered  through  all  the  colonies. 
Pennsylvania,  especially,  was  inhabited  by  an  ex 
traordinary  mixture  of  nationalities  and  religions. 
Since  steam-navigation  on  the  Atlantic  and  rail 
road  transportation  on  the  North  American  conti 
nent  became  cheap  and  easy,  the  tide  of  immigra 
tion  has  greatly  increased ;  but  it  is  very  doubtful 
if  the  amount  of  assimilation  going  on  in  the  nine 
teenth  century  has  been  any  larger,  in  proportion 
to  the  population  and  wealth  of  the  country,  than 
it  was  in  the  eighteenth.  The  main  difference  in 
the  assimilation  going  on  in  the  two  centuries  is 
this,  that  in  the  eighteenth  century  the  newcomers 
were  almost  all  Protestants,  while  in  the  nineteenth 
century  a  considerable  proportion  have  been  Cath 
olics.  One  result,  however,  of  the  importation  of 
large  numbers  of  Catholics  into  the  United  States 
has  been  a  profound  modification  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  in  regard  to  the  manners  and  cus 
toms  of  both  the  clergy  and  the  laity,  the  scope  of 
the  authority  of  the  priest,  and  the  attitude  of  the 
Catholic  Church  toward  public  education.  This 
American  modification  of  the  Roman  Church  has 
reacted  strongly  on  the  Church  in  Europe. 
Another  great  contribution  to  civilization  made 

52 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

by  the  United  States  is  the  diffusion  of  material 
well-being  among  the  population.  No  country  in 
the  world  approaches  the  United  States  in  this  re 
spect.  It  is  seen  in  that  diffused  elementary  edu 
cation  which  implants  for  life  a  habit  of  reading, 
and  in  the  habitual  optimism  which  characterizes 
the  common  people.  It  is  seen  in  the  housing  of 
the  people  and  of  their  domestic  animals,  in  the 
comparative  costliness  of  their  food,  clothing,  and 
household  furniture,  in  their  implements,  vehicles, 
and  means  of  transportation,  and  in  the  substitu 
tion,  on  a  prodigious  scale,  of  the  work  of  machinery 
for  the  work  of  men's  hands.  This  last  item  in 
American  well-being  is  quite  as  striking  in  agri 
culture,  mining,  and  fishing,  as  it  is  in  manufac 
tures.  The  social  effects  of  the  manufacture  of 
power,  and  of  the  discovery  of  means  of  putting 
that  power  just  where  it  is  wanted,  have  been  more 
striking  in  the  United  States  than  anywhere  else. 
Manufactured  and  distributed  power  needs  intelli 
gence  to  direct  it :  the  bicycle  is  a  blind  horse,  and 
must  be  steered  at  every  instant ;  somebody  must 
show  a  steam-drill  where  to  strike  and  how  deep 
to  go.  So  far  as  men  and  women  can  substitute 
for  the  direct  expenditure  of  muscular  strength 
the  more  intelligent  effort  of  designing,  tending, 
and  guiding  machines,  they  win  promotion  in  the 
scale  of  being,  and  make  their  lives  more  interest 
ing  as  well  as  more  productive.  It  is  in  the  inven 
tion  of  machinery  for  producing  and  distributing 
power,  and  at  once  economizing  and  elevating 
human  labor,  that  American  ingenuity  has  been 

33 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

most  conspicuously  manifested.  The  high  price  of 
labor  in  a  sparsely-settled  country  has  had  some 
thing  to  do  with  this  striking  result ;  but  the  genius 
of  the  people  and  of  their  government  has  had 
much  more  to  do  with  it.  As  proof  of  the  general 
proposition,  it  suffices  merely  to  mention  the  tele 
graph  and  telephone,  the  sewing-machine,  the  cot 
ton-gin,  the  mower,  reaper,  and  threshing-machine, 
the  dish-washing  machine,  the  river  steamboat,  the 
sleeping-car,  the  boot  and  shoe  machinery,  and  the 
watch  machinery.  The  ultimate  effects  of  these 
and  kindred  inventions  are  quite  as  much  intel 
lectual  as  physical,  and  they  are  developing  and 
increasing  with  a  portentous  rapidity  which  some 
times  suggests  a  doubt  whether  the  bodily  forces  of 
men  and  women  are  adequate  to  resist  the  new 
mental  strains  brought  upon  them.  However  this 
may  prove  to  be  in  the  future,  the  clear  result  in 
the  present  is  an  unexampled  diffusion  of  well- 
being  in  the  United  States.  ^ 

These  five  contributions  to  civilization  —  peace 
keeping,  religious  toleration,  the  development  of 
manhood  suffrage,  the  welcoming  of  newcomers, 
and  the  diffusion  of  well-being  —  I  hold  to  have 
been  eminently  characteristic  of  our  country,  and 
so  important  that,  in  spite  of  the  qualifications  and 
deductions  which  every  candid  citizen  would  ad 
mit  with  regard  to  every  one  of  them,  they  will  ever 
be  held  in  the  grateful  remembrance  of  mankind. 
They  are  reasonable  grounds  for  a  steady,  glowing 
patriotism.  They  have  had  much  to  do,  both  as 
causes  and  as  effects,  with  the  material  prosperity 

34 


Five  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation 

of  the  United  States ;  but  they  are  all  five  essen 
tially  moral  contributions,  being  triumphs  of  rea 
son,  enterprise,  courage,  faith,  and  justice,  over 
passion,  selfishness,  inertness,  timidity,  and  dis 
trust.  Beneath  each  one  of  these  developments 
there  lies  a  strong  ethical  sentiment,  a  strenuous 
moral  and  social  purpose.  It  is  for  such  work  that 
multitudinous  democracies  are  fit. 

In  regard  to  all  five  of  these  contributions,  the- 
characteristic  policy  of  our  country  has  been  from 
time  to  time  threatened  with  reversal  —  is  even 
now  so  threatened.  It  is  for  true  patriots  to  insist 
on  the  maintenance  of  these  historic  purposes  and 
policies  of  the  people  of  the  United  States.  Our 
country's  future  perils,  whether  already  visible  or 
still  unimagined,  are  to  be  met  with  courage  and 
constancy  founded  firmly  on  these  popular  achieve 
ments  in  the  past. 


35 


SOME  REASONS  WHY  THE 
AMERICAN  REPUBLIC  MAY  ENDURE 

FROM  THE  "  FORUM,"  OCTOBER,  1894 


SOME  REASONS  WHY  THE 
AMERICAN  REPUBLIC  MAY  ENDURE 


THE  governments  which  have  been  called  re 
publics  have  not,  as  a  rule,  exhibited  the  kind 
or  degree  of  durability  which  we  desire  for  our 
own  free  government.  The  American  republic 
has  now  lasted  more  than  a  hundred  years;  and 
little  Switzerland  maintains  a  precarious  existence 
by  favor  of  powerful  neighbors  jealous  of  each 
other ;  but  the  so-called  republics  of  Greece,  Rome, 
and  Italy,  and  two  French  republics,  have  perished. 
Mexico  and  the  republics  of  Central  and  South 
America  are  insecure  and  ineffective  governments. 
On  the  whole,  in  spite  of  our  instinctive  faith  in 
free  institutions,  we  cannot  shut  our  eyes  to  the 
fact  that  the  auguries  which  can  be  drawn  from 
history  are  not  favorable  to  the  real  permanence 
of  any  republic. 

When  we  set  out  to  seek  reasons  for  believing 
that  our  republic  will  live  longer  than  other  gov 
ernments  which  have  borne  that  name,  and  will 

39 


Some  Reasons  Why  tbe  American 

altogether  escape  decline  and  fall,  we  cannot  but  be 
dismayed  to  see  what  great  powers  and  resources 
the  older  republics  possessed,  and  what  splendid 
achievements  they  made,  without  winning  stability 
and  perpetuity  from  all  these  powers,  resources,  and 
achievements.  The  republic  of  Athens,  for  ex 
ample,  had  an  art  and  a  literature  which  have 
proved  themselves  immortal.  In  sculpture  and 
architecture  Athens  is  still  supreme ;  its  literature 
still  inspires  and  guides  philosophers,  poets,  and 
men  of  letters  in  nations  unborn  when  Greece  was 
in  her  prime.  Now  art  and  literature  are  among 
the  supreme  achievements  of  the  human  race ;  yet 
the  example  of  Athens  demonstrates  that  they  can 
not  of  themselves  safeguard  a  republic. 

We  must  not  attempt  to  console  ourselves  for 
this  painful  fact  by  the  thought  that  an  effeminate 
and  peaceful  people  might  excel  in  art  and  litera 
ture,  and  that  the  absence  of  forceful  national 
qualities  might  account  for  the  instability  of  such 
a  people's  government.  The  story  of  the  Eoman 
republic  invalidates  this  theory.  For  generations 
the  Roman  republic  was  the  strongest  government 
on  earth;  and  even  now,  as  we  examine  the  ele 
ments  of  its  strength,  it  seems  to  us  that  they 
might  have  given  durability  to  that  powerful  com 
monwealth.  In  the  first  place,  it  had  an  admira 
ble  body  of  public  law  which  determined  justice 
between  man  and  man  and  between  man  and  state ; 
and  that  body  of  law  was  so  wise  and  ample  that 
to-day  it  is  the  basis  of  the  public  law  of  the 
greater  part  of  the  populations  of  Europe.  Al- 

40 


Republic  May  Endure 

though  this  great  system  of  jurisprudence  still 
survives,  it  did  not  give  undecaying  life  to  the 
nation  which  created  it.  Moreover,  the  Roman 
republic  possessed  the  most  superb  army  which 
has  ever  existed — an  army  whose  conquests  were 
more  extensive  and  more  lasting  than  the  con 
quests  made  by  the  arms  of  any  other  state, 
ancient  or  modern.  The  Roman  army  has  never 
been  equaled  either  as  a  fighting  or  as  a  colo 
nizing  force ;  yet  that  army  did  not  assure  mount 
ing  vitality  to  the  Roman  commonwealth :  on  the 
contrary,  it  was  one  of  the  means  of  its  downfall. 

There  are  some  short-sighted  people  who  expect 
systems  of  public  transportation  and  intercommu 
nication  to  secure  nations  from  disintegration  ;  but 
again  the  history  of  Rome  teaches  the  contrary. 
Rome  had  a  transportation  system  which,  consid 
ering  the  means  at  the  disposal  of  the  engineer  at 
that  time,  has  never  been  equaled.  The  Roman 
roads  covered  the  greater  part  of  Europe  and 
northern  Africa,  and  considerable  portions  of  Asia; 
and  they  were  so  well  constructed  that  parts  of 
them  remain  to  this  day.  Some  of  the  Roman 
bridges  have  stood  for  twenty  centuries  unharmed 
by  flood  and  weather.  But  this  transportation 
system,  vast  and  perfect  as  it  was,  did  not  prevent 
the  decline  and  fall  of  the  Roman  power. 

One  might  suppose  that  a  nation  strong  and  rich 
enough  to  carry  out  immense  public  works,  such 
as  aqueducts,  baths,  temples,  palaces,  and  theaters, 
would  necessarily  possess  also  the  means  of  giving 
durability  to  their  form  of  government;  but  the 


Some  Reasons  Why  tbe  American 

experience  of  Rome  proves  that  we  can  rely  in 
our  own  case  on  none  of  these  things.  The  Ro 
man  aqueducts,  for  example,  which  brought  water 
to  all  their  principal  cities,  are  unequaled  to  the 
present  day  for  size,  massiveness,  and  boldness  of 
conception, —  partly,  to  be  sure,  because  the  Roman 
engineers  were  forced  to  erect  huge  structures  of 
masonry,  since  they  had  not  learned  to  make  large 
metallic  pipes.  Rome  teaches  conclusively  that 
magnitude  and  splendor  of  public  works  have  no 
tendency  to  guarantee  the  permanence  of  a  state. 

The  Italian  republics  have  still  another  lesson  for 
us.  Venice,  which  possessed  an  architecture  of 
wonderful  beauty,  and  an  art  in  painting  which 
still  remains  preeminent,  developed  these  fine  arts 
by  means  of  a  wide-spread  commerce,  which  gave 
its  citizens  wealth,  dignity,  and  power.  It  was, 
moreover,  a  martial  republic.  Its  very  merchants 
wore  swords.  Its  paintings  and  palaces  are  still 
the  admiration  of  the  world ;  but  its  commerce  ^as 
disappeared,  and  the  Venetian  republic  has  long 
been  obliterated.  Successful  commerce,  and  fine 
arts  following  in  its  train,  provide  no  security  for 
national  perpetuity. 

Most  of  the  national  resources  and  achievements 
which  have  now  been  mentioned  have  a  certain 
material  or  physical  quality.  Perhaps  we  can  dis 
cern  in  history  some  immaterial  force,  some  na 
tional  sentiment  or  passion,  which  can  be  relied 
on  to  give  permanence  to  national  institutions. 
There  has  been  one  power  in  the  world  on  which 
men  have  greatly  relied  for  the  security  of  govern- 

42 


Republic  May  Endure 

mental  and  social  institutions — namely,  the  power 
of  religious  enthusiasm;  but  what  does  history 
teach  with  regard  to  the  efficacy  of  this  sentiment 
to  give  security  to  states  ?  It  is  easy  to  find  in 
stances  of  concentrated  religious  enthusiasm  in  uni 
fied  national  forms.  The  Hebrew  religion  was  of 
this  sort.  It  bound  together  by  a  simple  faith  and 
a  common  ritual  all  the  members  of  a  race  which 
possessed  extraordinary  vitality  and  persistence; 
but  did  it  give  permanence  to  Judea  1  Even  as  a 
province  or  a  principality  Judea  has  disappeared. 
The  race  persists,  but  without  a  country  or  a  capi 
tal.  The  Arabic  civilization  was  carried  from  Asia, 
through  Africa,  into  Spain  by  Moslem  religious 
enthusiasm.  It  was  a  civilization  which  had  fine 
arts,  chronicles,  and  for  the  higher  classes  a  delicate 
and  luxurious  mode  of  life.  Its  soldiers  have  never 
been  surpassed  for  fervent  devotion.  But  this 
concentrated  religious  zeal,  effective  as  it  was  for 
conquest,  did  not  preserve  the  Arabic  civilization, 
which  has  disappeared  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 
Christian  experience  points  to  the  same  conclusion. 
Spain,  for  example,  drove  out  the  Moors  and  the 
Jews,  exterminated  the  Protestants,  and  made  itself 
Roman  Catholic  unitedly  and  fervently;  but  that 
single  Roman  Catholic  belief  and  ritual  did  not  pre 
serve  for  Spain  its  once  preeminent  position  in 
Europe.  On  the  contrary,  Spain,  become  single  in 
religious  opinion  and  practice,  languished,  retro 
graded,  and  lost  place  among  the  leaders  of  civili 
zation.  In  the  present  century  it  is  a  striking  fact 
that  the  three  nations  which  have  given  the  greatest 

43 


Some  Reasons  Why  tbe  American 

proofs  of  constitutional  vigor  —  namely,  Germany, 
England,  and  the  United  States — are  those  which 
in  religious  opinions  and  practices  are  very  hetero 
geneous,  so  that  no  concentrated  religious  fervor 
can  possibly  melt  and  unite  all  their  people.  We 
cannot  believe,  then,  that  religious  enthusiasm,  how 
ever  unified  and  concentrated,  can  guarantee  the 
permanent  existence  of  a  state. 

Great  public  powers,  splendid  arts,  noble  litera 
ture,  wide-spread  commerce,  and  exalted  religious 
sentiment  have,  then,  all  failed  to  secure  the  con 
tinuance  of  states.  Perhaps  a  humbler  achieve 
ment  of  recent  times  may  prove  more  effectual 
— namely,  the  achievement  of  general,  diffused 
physical  well-being.  There  seem  to  be  a  good 
many  social  philosophers  in  these  days  who  be 
lieve  that  the  general  diffusion  of  physical  com 
forts,  and  the  accessibility  of  easy  modes  of  life 
for  large  numbers  of  people,  will  have  some  ten 
dency  to  give  permanence  to  the  institutions  under 
which  these  material  goods  are  secured ;  that  the 
power  which  man  has  won  over  nature  through 
the  study  of  chemistry,  physics,  and  natural  his 
tory,  means  stability  for  the  institutions  under 
which  these  conquests  have  been  achieved.  May 
not  these  theorizers  be  right?  Will  not  growing) 
wealth,  ease,  and  comfort  guarantee  the  state,  pro- 1 
vided  that  these  advantages  be  within  reach  of  the 
many  1  The  answer  to  this  question  must  depend 
on  the  spiritual  use  made  of  added  physical  com 
fort.  A  nation  is  after  all  but  the  agglomeration 
of  an  immense  number  of  individuals;  and  the 

44 


Republic  May  Endure 

moral  condition  of  a  nation  can  be  nothing  but  the 
result  of  the  morality  prevailing  among  the  indi 
viduals  who  compose  it.  Comfort,  ease,  and  wealth 
must  have  on  a  nation  almost  the  same  effects  that 
they  have  on  an  individual.  Now,  softness  and 
ease  of  life  do  not  always  make  for  manliness  and 
virtue.  It  is  not  generally  supposed  that  riches 
increase  the  probability  of  enduring  vitality  for  a 
family  or  a  social  class.  The  common  opinion  is 
that  wealth  and  luxury  make  it,  not  easier,  but 
harder  to  bring  up  children  to  serviceable  citizen 
ship.  All  persons  who  have  been  concerned  with 
education  during  the  past  forty  years — which  is 
the  period  of  most  rapid  increase  in  diffused  phy 
sical  comfort  for  all  classes,  and  in  wealth  and 
luxury  for  considerable  numbers — recognize  that 
great  efforts  are  necessary  in  order  to  bring  up 
successfully  the  children  of  the  luxurious  classes; 
because  they  lack  the  natural  training  to  service 
which  children  get  in  families  where  every  mem 
ber  has  habitually  to  contribute  to  the  common 
maintenance.  It  is  harder,  not  easier,  for  the  rich 
man  than  for  the  poor  man  to  bring  up  his  children 
well.  Families  of  moderate  means  have  a  great 
advantage  over  the  rich  in  this  respect.  In  this 
matter  of  material  well-being  there  is  surely  some 
question  concerning  the  profitable  degree  of  comfort 
and  ease.  By  common  consent  there  is  a  degree 
of  ease  which  debilitates  rather  than  invigorates. 
The  general  fact  seems  to  be  that  the  effect  of 
material  prosperity  on  the  development  of  an  in 
dividual  or  the  duration  of  a  family  depends  on 

45 


Some  Reasons  Wby  the  American   s 

the  use  made  of  added  wealth  and  comfort.  When 
added  material  resources  produce  in  the  individual, 
or  in  the  family,  additional  mental  and  moral  re 
sources,  all  the  additions  work  together  for  good; 
otherwise  added  wealth  is  a  hindrance  and  not  a 
help.  When  a  mechanic,  a  clerk,  a  farmer,  or  a 
laborer  doubles  his  income  and  his  expenditures,  it 
does  not  necessarily  follow  that  the  mode  of  life  of 
himself  and  his  family  will  be  purer,  more  refined, 
and  more  intellectual.  It  may  be  improved,  or  it 
may  not  be.  In  the  same  way,  it  would  be  the  in 
tellectual  and  moral  effects  of  a  higher  degree  of 
physical  ease  and  comfort  enjoyed  by  a  whole  peo 
ple,  which  would  determine  whether  the  material 
gain  were  a  good  thing  or  an  evil.  If  diffused 
prosperity  made  a  people  lazy,  selfish,  and  sensual, 
as  it  easily  might,  it  would  not  contribute  to  the 
permanence  of  their  nationality  or  their  govern 
ment.  It  is  not  the  climates  which  are  always 
soft,  warm,  and  caressing  which  produce  the  most 
vigorous  races  of  men.  While  we  see  plainly  that 
extreme  poverty  is  an  evil  and  a  danger  alike  for 
the  individual,  the  family,  and  the  state,  we  can 
place  no  reliance  on  diffused  physical  well-being  as 
a  source  of  public  security,  until  we  can  be  assured 
of  its  effects  on  the  motives,  affections,  and  pas 
sions  of  the  people.  There  is  no  sure  hope  in 
either  increase  or  redistribution  of  wealth. 

If,  then,  we  would  find  reasons  for  believing  that 
the  American  republic  will  live,  when  other  re 
publics  have  not  lived,  we  must  seek  for  intellec 
tual  and  moral  causes  of  permanence  which  are 

46 


Republic  May  Endure 

comparatively  new  in  the  world,  or  at  least  which 
have  much  fuller  play  in  recent  than  in  earlier 
times. 

The  first  moral  cause  of  permanence  of  which 
the  American  republic  has  the  advantage  is  the 
principle  of  toleration  in  religion  —  a  principle 
which,  though  not  recently  enunciated  (nobody  has 
ever  stated  it  better  than  William  the  Silent),  has 
been  very  recently  put  in  practice,  not,  by  any 
means,  in  all  parts  of  the  civilized  world,  but  in  a 
few  favored  regions,  and  notably  in  the  United 
States.  On  one  of  the  tablets  of  the  Water-gate  at 
Chicago  was  written  this  sentence :  "  Toleration  in 
religion  the  best  fruit  of  the  last  four  centuries." 
This  statement  is  no  exaggeration  but  the  literal 
truth.  Toleration  in  religion  is  absolutely  the  best 
fruit  of  all  the  struggles,  labors,  and  sorrows  of 
the  civilized  nations  during  the  last  four  centuries. 
The  real  acceptance  of  this  principle  cannot  be 
carried  back  more  than  fifty  years.  Even  now  it 
is  not  accepted  everywhere  —  far  from  it ;  but  it  is 
accepted  in  the  United  States  more  widely  and 
completely  than  in  any  other  country,  and  here 
lies  one  of  the  chief  hopes  for  the  permanence  of 
our  institutions.  We  are  delivered  from  one  of 
the  worst  terrors  and  horrors  of  the  past.  What 
suffering  the  human  race  has  endured  from  re 
ligious  wars,  persecutions,  and  exterminations ! 
From  these  woes,  and  from  all  apprehension  of 
them,  the  people  of  the  American  republic  are 
delivered.  We  owe  to  this  principle,  however, 
much  more  than  deliverance  from  evils ;  for  it  is 

47 


Some  Reasons  IVby  the  American 

a  positive  promoter  of  good-will  and  mutual  re 
spect  among  men,  and  of  friendly  intercourse  un 
embarrassed  by  religious  distinctions.  That  this 
beneficent  principle  has  freer  play  here  than  it  has 
ever  had  elsewhere,  gives  one  firm  ground  for  be 
lieving  that  our  republic  may  attain  a  permanence 
never  before  attained. 

Another  mental  and  moral  force  which  makes 
for  the  permanence  of  our  institutions  is  universal 
education.  This  is  a  new  force  in  the  world,  not 
in  action  in  any  land  before  this  century.  It  has 
not  existed  more  than  twenty  years  in  such  a  civil 
ized  country  as  France ;  it  dates  only  from  1870  in 
England.  It  is  not  yet  true  that  education  is  uni 
versal  even  in  our  own  country ;  but  the  principle 
of  universal  education  finds  general  acceptance, 
and  the  practical  results  approximate  more  and 
more,  as  time  goes  on,  to  the  requirements  of  the 
theoretical  principle.  In  all  civilized  countries 
continuous  effort  is  made  to  bring  the  practice  up 
to  the  level  of  the  theory.  Within  three  genera 
tions  immense  progress  has  been  made;  and  it 
now  seems  as  if  a  perfectly  feasible  development 
of  this  principle  in  practice  must  work  a  profound 
change  in  human  society  within  a  comparatively 
small  number  of  future  generations.  Must  we  not 
hope  everything  from  this  new  factor  in  civilized 
life, —  from  the  steady  cultivation  in  all  classes  of 
correct  observation,  just  reasoning,  and  the  taste 
for  good  reading  ?  Must  we  not  hope  to  be  deliv 
ered  from  a  thousand  evils  which  are  results  of 
ignorance  and  unreason?  It  is  reasonable  to  ex- 

48 


Republic  May  Endure 

pect  that  even  the  evils  of  inherited  vicious  ten 
dencies  and  habits  will  be  mitigated  by  universal 
education.  It  is  always  through  the  children  that 
the  best  work  is  to  be  done  for  the  uplifting  of 
any  community.  When  we  consider  for  how  few 
years  in  the  history  of  mankind  this  practice  of 
general  education  has  prevailed,  and  to  how  few 
generations  it  has  ever  been  applied,  we  cannot 
but  find  in  this  new  practice  great  hope  for  the 
development  of  the  intelligence  and  the  morality 
needed  to  secure  the  permanence  of  free  institu 
tions.  It  is  a  commonplace  that  republican  in 
stitutions  are  built  on  education;  but  we  hardly 
realize  how  new  that  commonplace  is.  Plato 
taught  that  the  industrial  and  producing  classes 
needed  no  education  whatever.  None  of  the  re 
publics  which  have  died  had  anything  more  than  a 
small  educated  class.  The  masses  of  their  people 
grew  up  and  lived  in  crassest  ignorance.  The 
great  change  in  regard  to  the  education  of  the 
people  which  the  present  century  has  witnessed 
is  not  confined  to  mere  primary  instruction.  That 
primary  instruction  is  of  course  the  most  widely 
diffused,  and  imparts  to  the  masses  the  art  of  read 
ing,  which  is  the  principal  vehicle  for  the  subse 
quent  cultivation  of  the  intelligence.  Beyond  this 
primary  instruction,  about  five  per  cent,  of  all  the 
children  in  the  United  States  receive  the  more 
elaborate  training  of  secondary  schools  and  normal 
schools.  Of  this  five  per  cent,  a  fair  proportion 
attend  colleges  and  universities.  This  attainment 
of  secondary,  or  higher,  instruction  by  one  child  in 

49 


Some  Reasons  Why  the  American 

twenty  in  the  United  States  is  quite  as  novel  a 
social  fact  as  the  attainment  of  primary  instruc 
tion  by  the  other  nineteen.  Universal  suffrage 
prolongs  in  the  United  States  the  effect  of  univer 
sal  education ;  for  it  stimulates  all  citizens  through 
out  their  lives  to  reflect  on  problems  outside  the 
narrow  circle  of  their  private  interests  and  occupa 
tions,  to  read  about  public  questions,  to  discuss 
public  characters,  and  to  hold  themselves  ready  in 
some  degree  to  give  a  rational  account  of  their 
political  faith.  The  duties  of  republican  citizen 
ship,  rightly  discharged,  constitute  in  themselves  a 
prolonged  education,  which  effectively  supplements 
the  work  of  schools  and  colleges. 

A  third  reason  for  believing  that  our  institutions 
will  endure  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  a  better 
family  life  prevails  among  our  people  than  was 
known  to  any  of  the  republics  which  have  per 
ished,  or,  indeed,  to  any  earlier  century.  The 
family,  not  the  individual,  is  the  tap-root  of  the 
state,  and  whatever  tends  to  secure  the  family 
tends  to  secure  the  state.  Now  family  life  —  under 
which  term  may  properly  be  included  all  the  com 
plex  relations  between  husband  and  wife,  and  pa 
rents  and  children  —  is  gentler  in  this  century,  and 
particularly  in  the  United  States,  than  it  has  ever 
been.  Family  discipline  has  become,  even  within 
thirty  years,  much  gentler  than  it  ever  was  before. 
The  relations  of  husband  and  wife  have  also  be 
come  juster.  In  the  savage  state  the  superior  phy 
sical  strength  of  the  man,  his  greater  freedom  from 
occasional  or  periodical  bodily  limitations,  and  his 

50 


Republic  May  Endure 

greater  enterprise  and  boldness,  made  the  relation 
of  husband  and  wife  very  like  that  of  master  and 
slave.  Civilization  has  steadily  contended  against 
that  savage  inheritance;  and  has  aimed  through 
public  law  at  the  emancipation  of  the  weaker  sex 
and  the  establishment  of1  equality  in  the  relation  of 
the  sexes.  A  single  illustration — the  laws  affect 
ing  the  transmission  of  property — must  suffice. 
American  legislation  on  this  subject  is  the  most 
just  the  world  has  seen.  Under  the  feudal  system 
it  was  almost  necessary  to  the  life  of  that  social 
organization  that,  when  the  father  died,  the  real 
estate — which  was  generally  the  whole  estate — 
should  go  to  the  eldest  son,  over  the  head  of  the 
mother ;  for  the  son  inherited  his  father's  responsi 
bilities  in  war,  in  productive  industries,  and  in  so 
ciety.  The  son,  not  the  wife,  was  the  husband's 
heir.  In  France  to-day,  if  a  man  dies  leaving  a 
wife  and  children,  a  large  share  of  his  property 
must  go  to  his  children.  He  is  not  free,  under  any 
circumstances,  to  give  it  all  to  his  wife.  A  pre 
scribed  portion  must  by  law  go  to  the  children 
over  the  head  of  their  mother.  The  children  are 
his  children,  and  the  wife  is  not  recognized  as  an 
equal  owner.  It  is  the  man  who  is  the  head  of  that 
group  of  human  beings,  and  a  large  share  of  his 
property  must  go  to  his  children.  Again  we  see  in 
public  law  an  assertion  of  the  lower  place  of  the 
woman.  But  how  is  it  in  our  own  country?  In 
the  first  place,  we  have  happily  adopted  a  valuable 
English  measure,  the  right  of  dower ;  but  this  mea 
sure,  though  good  so  far  as  it  goes,  gives  not  equal- 

51 


Some  Reasons  Wby  the  American 

ity  but  a  certain  protection.  Happily,  American 
law  goes  farther,  and  the  wife  may  inherit  from 
the  husband  the  whole  of  his  property.  She  must 
receive  a  part  of  it ;  but  he,  under  certain  restric 
tions  intended  to  prevent  frauds  on  creditors,  may 
give  her  the  whole.  On  the  other  hand,  the  wife, 
if  she  has  property,  may  give  the  whole  of  it  to  the 
husband.  Here  is  established  in  the  law  of  inherit 
ance  a  relation  of  equality  between  husband  and 
wife  —  a  relation  which  is  the  happiest,  most  just, 
and  most  beneficent  for  the  man,  the  woman,  their 
children,  and  the  state.  It  is  an  indirect  advantage 
of  our  laws  and  customs  concerning  the  inheritance 
of  property  that  they  promote  the  redistribution  of 
wealth  accumulated  in  single  hands.  The  custom 
of  treating  all  children  alike  in  testamentary  dis 
positions  obviously  tends  in  this  direction ;  and  the 
practice  of  leaving  property  to  women  promotes 
the  redistribution  of  wealth,  because  women  are, 
as  a  rule,  less  competent  than  men  either  to  keep 
money  or  to  make  it  productive.  There  is  a  real 
safeguard  in  these  customs  against  the  undue  in 
crease  of  wealth  and  luxury.  That  gentleness  and 
justice  in  family  life  should  have  been  greatly  pro 
moted  under  the  American  republic,  not  among  a 
small  minority  of  the  people,  but  among  the  masses, 
may  well  give  us  a  lively  hope  for  the  permanence 
of  the  institutions  under  which  these  benefits  have 
been  attained.  Whatever  regulates  wisely  the  re 
lations  of  the  sexes,  and  increases  domestic  hap 
piness,  increases  also  social  and  governmental 
stability. 

52 


Republic  May  Endure 

Pursuing  the  idea  that  the  promotion  of  diffused 
happiness  promotes  governmental  stability,  we  ob 
serve  next  that  certain  means  of  public  happiness 
have  recently  been  liberally  provided  in  many 
American  communities,  at  public  expense,  with 
great  intelligence  and  by  deliberate  design.  Dur 
ing  the  last  twenty-five  years,  strenuous  efforts 
have  been  made  in  many  municipalities  to  promote 
public  happiness  by  giving  opportunities  to  the 
multitude  for  the  enjoyment  of  fresh  air  and  natu 
ral  beauty.  One  of  the  most  striking  social  phe 
nomena  in  the  United  States  of  recent  years  has 
been  the  sudden  creation  of  public  parks  and  play 
grounds,  constructed  and  maintained  at  public  ex 
pense.  At  bottom,  the  meaning  of  this  sudden 
development  is  that  the  people  seek  to  procure  for 
themselves,  and  are  procuring,  increased  means  of 
health  and  happiness.  They  have  still  much  to 
learn  in  regard  to  utilizing  the  means  provided, 
for  our  native  population  does  not  take  natu 
rally  to  fresh  air,  family  holidays,  and  out-of- 
door  meals.  They  have  been  too  long  unwonted 
to  these  wholesome  delights.  This  public  park 
and  garden  movement  has  only  just  begun ;  but 
the  improvement  made  within  twenty  years  gives 
the  strongest  possible  hope  for  the  rapid  spread 
of  this  wise  public  policy.  European  municipali 
ties  have  often  been  enabled  to  provide  them 
selves  with  parks  and  gardens  by  appropriating 
royal  domains,  estates  of  nobles,  or  disused  forts 
and  fortifications.  The  democratic  American  com 
munities  have  enjoyed  no  such  facilities,  but  have 

53 


Some  Reasons  Why  tbe  American 

been  obliged  to  buy  the  reservations  —  often  at 
great  cost —  and  create  or  restore  the  needed  beau 
ties  of  park  or  garden.  That  the  democracy  should 
manifest  both  the  will  and  the  capacity  to  accom 
plish  such  beneficent  and  far-seeing  undertakings, 
is  a  good  omen  of  durability  for  that  form  of  gov 
ernment.  The  provision  of  free  libraries  and  mu 
seums  of  natural  history  and  fine  arts,  at  public 
expense,  or  by  the  combination  of  private  endow 
ments  with  public  appropriations,  is  another  evi 
dence  of  the  disposition  of  the  democracy  to 
provide  the  means  of  public  cultivation  and  en- 
jojonent.  Much  of  this  good  work  has  been  done 
within  the  past  forty  years,  and  very  little  such 
work  was  ever  done  before  by  a  popular  gov 
ernment.  The  American  cities  have  also  grap 
pled  intelligently  with  the  serious  problems,  of 
water-supply,  sewerage,  and  preventive  medicine, 
although  the  suddenness  and  volume  of  the  move 
ment  of  the  population  into  large  towns  and'  cities 
have  greatly  increased  the  normal  difficulty  of  these 
problems. 

Another  new  and  effective  bulwark  of  state  is  to 
be  found  in  the  extreme  publicity  with  which  all 
American  activities  are  carried  on.  Many  people 
are  in  the  habit  of  complaining  bitterly  of  the  in 
trusion  of  the  newspaper  reporter  into  every  nook 
and  corner  of  the  state,  and  even  into  the  privacy 
of  home  ;  but  in  this  extreme  publicity  is  really  to 
be  found  a  new  means  of  social,  industrial,  and 
governmental  reform  and  progress.  As  Emerson 
said,  "Light  is  the  best  policeman."  There  are 

54 


Republic  May  Endure 

many  exaggerations,  perversions,  and  inaccuracies 
in  this  publicity ;  but  on  the  whole  it  is  a  beneficent 
and  a  new  agency  for  the  promotion  of  the  public 
welfare.  Such  publicity  has  become  possible  partly 
through  man's  new  power  over  nature,  as  seen  in' 
the  innumerable  applications  of  heat  and  electricity, 
and  partly  through  the  universal  capacity  to  read. 
For  almost  all  social,  industrial,  and  political  evils 
publicity  gives  the  best  hope  of  reasonable  remedy. 
Publicity  exposes  not  only  wickedness,  but  also 
folly  and  bad  judgment.  It  makes  crime  and  po 
litical  corruption  more  difficult  and  far  less  attrac 
tive.  The  forger,  burglar,  and  corruptionist  need 
secrecy,  for  two  reasons :  first,  that  they  may  suc 
ceed  in  their  crimes ;  and  secondly,  that  they  may 
enjoy  the  fruits  of  their  wickedness.  The  most 
callous  sinner  finds  it  hard  to  enjoy  the  product  of 
his  sin  if  he  knows  that  everybody  is  aware  how 
he  came  by  it.  No  good  cause  ever  suffered  from 
publicity ;  no  bad  cause  but  instinctively  avoids  it. 
So  new  is  this  force  in  the  world,  that  many  people 
do  not  yet  trust  it,  or  perceive  its  immense  utility. 
In  cases  of  real  industrial  grievances  or  oppres 
sions,  publicity  would  be  by  far  the  quickest  and 
surest  means  of  cure  —  vastly  more  effective  for  all 
just  ends  than  secret  combinations  of  either  capi 
talists  or  laborers.  The  newspapers,  which  are  the 
ordinary  instruments  of  this  publicity,  are  as  yet 
very  imperfect  instruments,  much  of  their  work 
being  done  so  hastily  and  so  cheaply  as  to  preclude 
accuracy ;  but  as  a  means  of  publicity  they  visibly 
improve  from  decade  to  decade,  and,  taken  to- 

55 


Some  Reasons  Why  tbe  American 

gether  with  the  magazines  and  the  controversial 
pamphlet,  they  shed  more  light  on  the  social,  in 
dustrial,  and  political  life  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  than  was  ever  shed  before  on  the 
doings  and  ways  of  any  people.  This  force  is  dis 
tinctly  new  within  this  century,  and  it  affords  a 
new  and  strong  guarantee  for  the  American  re 
public. 

Within  the  past  fifty  years  there  has  been  de 
veloped,  for  the  conduct  of  business,  education,  and 
charity,  an  agency  which  may  fairly  be  called  new 
— namely,  the  corporation.  Although  a  few  chari 
table,  trading,  and  manufacturing  corporations 
were  of  earlier  origin, — some  of  which  became 
famous, — the  great  development  of  corporate 
powers  and  functions  has  all  taken  place  within 
fifty  years,  since  the  application  of  the  principle  of 
limited  liability.  Thousands  upon  thousands  of  cor 
porations  are  now  organized  in  the  United  States, 
and  are  actively  carrying  on  a  great  variety  of  indus 
trial  and  social  operations.  Millions  of  Americans 
get  their  livings  and  pass  their  lives  in  the  service 
of  these  corporations.  As  a  rule,  the  employees  of 
corporations  receive  wages  or  salaries,  and  have  no 
further  interest  in  the  business.  We  are  so  famil 
iar  with  this  state  of  things  that  we  do  not  realize 
its  absolute  novelty.  It  has  practically  been 
created  within  the  lifetime  of  persons  who  are  not 
yet  old.  In  the  service  of  corporations,  there  is 
seldom  any  element  of  personal  devotion,  such  as 
existed  in  other  times  between  subject  and  sov 
ereign,  or  between  retainer  and  feudal  chief;  but 

56 


Republic  May  Endure 

there  is  a  large  element  of  fidelity  and  loyalty, 
which  is  becoming  of  greater  and  greater  impor 
tance  in  the  formation  of  the  national  character. 
A  considerable  portion  of  all  the  business,  charity, 
and  education  carried  on  in  the  United  States  is 
well  conducted  by  the  faithful  and  loyal  servants 
of  corporations,  as  every  one  will  plainly  see  so 
soon  as  he  takes  account  of  his  own  contacts  in 
daily  life  with  the  work  of  corporations,  and  com 
pares  them  with  his  contacts  with  the  work  of  in 
dividuals  or  of  partnerships.  This  corporation 
service  affords  a  new  discipline  for  masses  of  peo 
ple;  and  it  is  a  discipline  of  the  highest  value 
toward  inducing  stability  and  durability  in  govern 
mental  institutions.  The  service  of  a  town  or  city, 
of  a  state,  or  the  national  government  is  really  a 
kind  of  corporation  service,  carried  on  at  present, 
to  be  sure,  under  unfavorable  conditions,  the  pub 
lic  service  being  subject  to  evils  and  temptations 
from  which  private  corporation  service  is  for  the 
most  part  exempt,  and  yielding  to  those  who  pay 
its  cost  less  for  their  money  than  they  get  from 
any  other  kind  of  corporation.  In  all  probability 
these  unfavorable  conditions  will  prove  to  be  tem 
porary.  From  the  frequent  occurrence  of  strikes 
on  railroads  and  in  mines  we  get  an  impression 
that  there  is  little  fidelity  in  the  service  of  cor 
porations;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
organization  of  American  railroads  and  mining 
companies  is,  with  some  notable  exceptions,  very 
inferior  to  the  organization  of  other  corporations, 
and  that  the  laborers  in  the  lower  grades  of  these 

57 


Some  Reasons  Why  the  American 

two  employments  are  distinctly  of  an  inferior  sort. 
Most  of  these  railroad  and  mining  corporations 
have  never  adopted  any  of  the  means  which  Euro 
pean  experience  has  shown  to  be  efficacious  for 
attaching  their  employees  permanently  to  their 
service.  For  the  most  part,  they  claim  the  right  to 
act  on  the  brutal  principle  of  instant  dismissal 
without  notice  or  cause  assigned.  If  we  direct  our 
attention  to  the  banks,  trust  companies,  insurance 
companies,  manufacturing  corporations,  colleges, 
universities,  endowed  schools,  hospitals  and  asy 
lums  of  the  country,  we  shall  realize  that  the 
quality  of  corporation  service  is  really  good,  and 
that  the  great  majority  of  corporation  servants 
exhibit,  in  high  degree,  the  admirable  virtues  of 
fidelity  and  loyalty.  The  successful  career  of  the 
new  companies  which  insure  fidelity  is  an  interest 
ing  corroboration  of  this  observation.  Even  the 
railroads  and  the  mines  exhibit  from  time  to  time 
fine  examples  of  fidelity  on  the  part  of  large  bodies 
of  their  employees,  in  spite  of  extremely  adverse 
conditions,  such  as  the  presence  of  serious  bodily 
danger,  and  the  seductions  of  some  ill-managed 
unions  which  claim  to  represent  the  permanent 
interests  of  workingmen.  There  can  be  no  better 
preparation  for  faithful  and  loyal  service  to  the 
government  than  faithful  and  loyal  service  to  a 
corporation  which  conducts  a  business  of  magni 
tude  and  recognized  utility.  In  these  days  of  com 
prehensive  trusts  and  far-reaching  monopolies  we 
see  clearly  that  such  agencies  directly  prepare  the 
way  for  governmental  assumption  of  their  powers 


Republic  May  Endure 

and  functions.  The  wider  and  more  comprehensive 
the  monopoly,  the  stronger  becomes  the  argument 
for  the  assumption  of  that  business  by  the  govern 
ment.  Indeed,  the  government  is  the  only  agency 
which  should  be  trusted  with  a  complete  monopoly. 
At  any  rate,  the  presumption  is  in  favor  of  govern 
ment  conduct  of  any  business  which  has  complete 
possession  of  the  market.  The  corporation,  then,  is 
not  simply  a  means  of  aggregating  small  capitals 
and  utilizing  them  in  large  blocks;  it  is  also  an 
agency  for  training  masses  of  people  to  the  high 
virtues  of  fidelity  and  loyalty — virtues  which  can 
not  but  secure  the  state.  At  the  present  stage  of 
progress,  with  all  corporations  so  new  in  the  world, 
society  suffers  through  them  various  evils,  such  as 
oppressive  monopoly,  destructive  competition,  po 
litical  corruption,  and  occasionally  inefficiency  and 
obstructiveness;  but  on  the  whole  this  new  agency 
is  of  incalculable  value  to  modern  society,  and,  in 
time  to  come,  will  prove  a  firm  buttress  of  free  in 
stitutions. 

The  recent  attempts  to  carry  out  general  strikes 
in  industries  which  produce  or  distribute  necessa 
ries  of  life  have  demonstrated  that  society  will  not 
endure  a  suspension  of  labor  in  such  industries  for 
more  than  a  few  days.  The  reason  is  that  men  are 
much  more  dependent  on  each  other  than  they  used 
to  be.  The  extreme  division  of  labor,  which  has 
more  and  more  characterized  the  normal  industrial 
methods  in  civilized  states  since  the  beginning  of 
the  present  century,  has  brought  about  a  mutual 
dependence  of  man  on  man  and  community  on 

59 


Some  Reasons  Why  the  American 

community,  which  is  a  strong  guarantee  of  the  per 
manence  of  free  institutions.  Adam  Smith  dealt 
with  this  great  subject  of  the  division  of  labor  in 
1776 ;  but  the  present  century  has  seen  the  princi 
ple  wrought  out  in  detail,  and  carried  through  every 
branch  of  industry  —  indeed,  the  last  fifty  years 
have  witnessed  extensive  new  applications  of  the 
principle.  In  the  savage  state  each  family  is  toler 
ably  independent  of  every  other,  as  regards  food, 
clothing,  and  shelter.  Fifty  years  ago  a  New  Eng 
land  farmer  raised  on  his  own  farm  most  of  the 
materials  which  supplied  him  and  his  family  with 
food,  clothing,  fire,  and  shelter;  but  now,  when 
three  fifths  of  the  population  of  New  England  live 
in  large  towns  or  cities,  when  the  New  England 
farm  no  longer  produces  either  wheat  or  wool,  and 
when  every  urban  household  imports  the  whole  of 
its  food  and  clothing,  and  all  its  materials  for  light 
and  heat,  the  dependence  of  every  little  group  of 
New  Englanders  on  numerous  other  persons,  near 
and  remote,  has  become  well-nigh  absolute.  All 
civilized  mankind  lives  under  similar  conditions  of 
interdependence.  The  sense  of  dependence  is  of 
course  mutual,  and  with  it  goes  some  recognition 
of  common  aims  and  hopes  among  the  different 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  This  sense  of  com 
mon  interests  is  something  very  different  from  the 
sentiment  of  human  equality.  It  is  a  feeling  of 
unity,  not  of  equality.  It  has  a  firm  foundation  in 
facts;  whereas  the  notion  that  men  are  equal  is 
plainly  false,  unless  it  be  strictly  limited  to  the  po 
litical  significance  of  equality,  namely,  to  equality 

60 


Republic  May  Endure 

before  the  law  and  in  regard  to  the  right  of  suff 
rage.  It  is  a  feeling  which  leads  naturally  to  a 
sense  of  human  brotherhood.  In  a  family  the  feel 
ing  of  mutual  dependence  and  mutual  support  is 
one  of  the  roots  of  family  affection.  In  the  same 
way,  in  the  larger  human  brotherhood  the  mutual 
dependence  which  division  of  labor  has  brought 
about  strengthens  the  feeling  of  unity.  The  doc 
trine  of  human  brotherhood  has  been  taught  for 
thousands  of  years.  It  is  all  contained  in  two 
words  —  "Our  Father";  but,  though  accepted  by 
seers  and  philosophers,  it  has  been  little  realized  in 
practice  by  the  multitude. .  There  are  many  signs 
of  the  wide  and  steady  spread  of  the  realized  ac 
ceptance  of  this  doctrine  in  practice.  The  theory, 
long  current  in  the  world,  gets  more  and  more  ap 
plied  in  institutions,  in  business,  and  in  society. 
The  fact  of  intimate  mutual  dependence  extends  to 
different  states  and  nations.  A  federation  of  States 
like  the  American  Union  affords  a  favorable  field 
for  the  practical  realization  by  masses  of  people  of 
the  truth  of  the  affirmation  St.  Paul  frequently  re 
peated,  "  We  are  members  one  of  another."  It  gives 
excellent  opportunities  for  observing  that  the  mis 
fortune  of  one  State  is  invariably  the  misfortune 
of  all;  that  no  State  can  suffer  in  its  crops,  or  its 
industries,  or  its  moral  standards,  without  involving 
the  others  in  loss  and  damage.  Under  a  federated 
government  like  our  own,  the  conditions  under  which 
such  deductions  as  these  may  be  made  are  simpler 
than  they  can  possibly  be  when  the  experiences  of 
different  nations  living  under  different  forms  of 

61 


Some  Reasons  Why  the  American 

government  and  under  different  legislation,  must 
be  compared.  In  spite,  therefore,  of  local  and  sec 
tional  jealousies  and  oppositions,  the  American 
people  have  come  to  accept  as  literal  truth  St. 
Paul's  statement,  "  And  whether  one  member  suf 
fer,  all  the  members  suffer  with  it."  The  doctrine 
is  old;  but  the  realization  of  the  doctrine  is  new. 
This  realization  of  an  ancient  truth  marks  again 
the  progress  of  society  toward  practical  acceptance 
of  the  conception  that  there  is  a  genuine  unity  of 
aims  and  hopes  among  all  men,  an  acceptance  which 
of  itself  will  prove  a  stout  bulwark  of  free  insti 
tutions. 

We  now  come  to  certain  abstract  considerations 
which  probably  supply  the  firmest  grounds  for 
hopeful  anticipations  concerning  the  future  of  free 
institutions,  though  to  some  minds  they  will  doubt 
less  seem  intangible  and  unsubstantial.  In  recent 
times,  serious  changes  have  taken  place  in  regard 
to  the  highest  hopes,  aspirations,  and  ideals  of  man 
kind.  These  ideal  conceptions  have  been  slowly 
wrought  out  in  the  minds  of  students,  philosophers, 
and  poets,  and  have  been  cherished  by  the  few; 
but  suddenly,  within  the  past  two  generations,  they 
have  found  acceptance  with  multitudes  of  men. 
This  sudden  acceptance  is  the  combined  result  of 
the  rapid  progress  of  scientific  knowledge  during 
the  last  fifty  years,  and  of  the  general  ability  of  the 
people  to  read.  These  changes  of  expectation,  as 
piration,  and  faith  are  of  course  only  moral  forces ; 
but  they  are  forces  which  greatly  affect  the  sum  of 
human  happiness.  As  has  already  been  repeatedly 

62 


Republic  May  Endure 

intimated,  the  stability  of  governments  depends 
largely  on  the  just  answer  to  the  question  —  Do 
they  provide  the  necessary  conditions  of  happy 
human  life  ?  The  first  change  of  expectation  which 
claims  attention  is  the  changed  sentiment  of  the 
people  toward  what  is  new,  and  therefore  untried. 
The  American  people,  as  a  rule,  approach  a  new  ob 
ject,  a  new  theory,  or  a  new  practice,  with  a  degree 
of  hope  and  confidence  which  no  other  people  ex 
hibit.  The  unknown  is  to  the  savage  terrible ;  the 
dark  has  been  dreadful,  and  evil  has  always  been 
imagined  of  it ;  many  highly  civilized  people  have 
an  aversion  to  things  novel ;  but  for  us  Americans 
so  many  new  things  have  proved  to  be  good  things, 
that  we  no  longer  look  on  what  is  novel  with  sus 
picion  and  distrust.  Our  continent  is  new,  and  has 
proved  to  be  rich ;  our  machinery  is  new,  and  has 
proved  to  be  useful ;  our  laws  are  many  of  them 
new,  but  they  have  proved  helpful.  The  people 
have  traversed  many  wilds  and  wastes,  but  have 
passed  them  with  safety,  and  found  good  in  the 
unexplored  and  unknown.  The  untried  is  therefore 
for  us  no  longer  terrible,  or,  at  least,  to  be  sus-^ 
pected.  Hope  and  expectation  of  good  spring  in 
our  hearts,  as  never  before  in  the  hearts  of  former 
generations. 

Furthermore,  the  changes  which  have  taken  place  * 
in  the  realized  doctrines  of  Christianity  concerning 
the  origin  and  nature  of  man  are  very  reassuring 
for  those  who  believe  in  the  possibility  of  develop 
ing  a  nation  of  freemen  capable  of  orderly  self-gov 
ernment.  The  old  conceptions  of  the  fall  of  man 

63 


Some  Reasons  Why  tbe  American 

and  of  the  total  depravity  of  the  race  were  good 
foundations  for  the  regime  of  a  beneficent  despot, 
but  not  for  the  regime  of  self-governing  freemen. 
The  modern  doctrine  of  the  steady  ascent  of  man 
through  all  his  history  is  necessarily  welcome  to 
republicans,  because  it  justifies  their  political  be 
liefs.  Again,  enlarged  knowledge  of  the  nature  of 
the  universe,  and  a  more  accurate  view  of  man's 
humble  place  in  it,  have  also  contributed  to  the 
prevalence  of  a  humane  philosophy  which  is  a  se 
curity  for  good  governments.  It  was,  on  the  whole, 
an  unwholesome  conception  that  the  universe  was 
made  for  man,  and  that  he  was  the  rightful  master 
of  it  all.  Out  of  that  prodigious  piece  of  ignorant 
assumption  came  many  practical  wrongs  toward 
animals  and  inferior  races  of  men.  To  a  more 
cheerful  outlook  the  gradual  triumph  of  science  over 
many  terrors  and  superstitions  has  contributed,  as 
has  also  the  growing  power  of  men  to  resist  or 
moderate  the  effects  of  catastrophes  like  storms, 
droughts,  famines,  and  pestilences.  The  earth  and 
the  universe  are  brighter  and  less  terrible  than  they 
were.  There  is  even  a  greater  brightening  in  man's 
spiritual  landscape.  No  cherished  ideal  of  our  race 
has  undergone  a  more  beneficent  change  during  the 
present  century  than  the  ideal  of  G-od;  and  this 
change  makes  strongly  for  the  happiness  of  man 
kind.  The  Christian  Gospel  has  just  begun  to  be 
realized.  We  have  just  begun  to  understand  that 
God  is  love.  He  has  been  an  awful  ideal  of  justice 
and  wrath  —  an  angry  deity  whose  chief  functions 
were  punishment  and  vengeance.  The  world  He 

64 


Republic  May  Endure 

made  was  full  of  evil ;  the  men  He  made  were  all 
depraved,  and  most  of  them  hopelessly  so.  This 
ideal  of  divinity,  however  influential,  did  not  in 
crease  human  cheerfulness  and  joy.  Although  it 
lingers  still  in  creeds,  consecrated  formulae,  and  an 
cient  hymns,  it  has  practically  ceased  to  be  believed 
by  considerable  numbers  of  men,  both  churched 
and  unchurched.  The  ideal  which  replaces  it  is  one 
of  supreme  power  and  love,  rilling  the  universe, 
working  through  all  human  institutions,  and  through 
all  men.  This  ideal  promotes  happiness  and  joy. 
It  is  not  new ;  but  it  is  newly  realized  by  multi 
tudes.  Now,  these  beneficent  changes  in  the  spirit 
ual  conceptions  of  large  numbers  of  men  have  taken 
place  since  our  country  took  on  its  present  govern 
mental  structure ;  and  they  have  lent  and  will  lend 
to  that  structure  a  firm  support,  because  they  con 
tribute  generously  to  the  happiness  and  true  spirit 
uality  of  the  people. 

Finally,  the  object  of  religion  and  the  aim  of  its 
ministers  have  become  wonderfully  different,  since 
the  American  republic  was  established,  from  what 
they  were  in  ancient  or  mediaeval  times,  or  even 
down  to  the  opening  of  this  century.  The  religions 
of  the  ancient  world  had  very  little  to  do  with  mo 
rality.  They  were  propitiatory  and  protective. 
The  Christian  religion  and  its  ministers  for  the  last 
fifteen  hundred  years  were  chiefly  concerned  with 
the  conciliation  of  an  offended  God,  the  provision 
of  securities  for  individual  happiness  in  a  future 
life, —  these  securities  being  attainable  by  persons 
whose  mode  of  life  in  this  world  had  been  of 


Some  Reasons  Why  tbe  American 

questionable  or  even  vicious  quality, —  and  the 
offering  of  joys  in  another  world  as  consolation  or 
compensation  for  sufferings  or  evils  in  this.  Since 
the  beginning  of  this  century  a  revolution  has 
occurred,  which  has  been  felt  more  or  less  in  every 
branch  of  the  Christian  Church  and  in  almost  every 
Christian  nation,  but  has  had  a  broad  sweep  in  the 
United  States.  The  primary  objects  of  religion  and 
its  ministers  in  our  day  and  country  are  more  and 
more  to  soften  and  elevate  the  characters  and  lives 
of  men  in  this  world,  and  to  ameliorate  the  common 
lot.  The  improvement  of  character  and  conduct 
in  the  individual,  in  society,  and  in  the  state  during 
this  present  life  is  now  becoming  the  principal  aim 
of  many  churches  and  their  ministers.  The  pro 
gressive  churches  are  all  of  this  mind;  and  even 
the  most  conservative  —  like  the  Roman  Catholic 
and  the  Presbyterian  —  plainly  exhibit  this  ten 
dency.  By  the  multitude  of  the  unchurched,  also, 
it  is  generally  understood  that  there  is  no  angry 
Glod  to  propitiate,  and  that  the  only  way  to  take 
security  for  the  morrow,  whether  in  life  or  in 
death,  is  to  do  well  the  duties  of  to-day.  Religion, 
by  devoting  itself  to  the  elevation  of  human  char 
acter,  becomes  a  prop  and  stay  of  free  institutions, 
because  these  rest  ultimately  on  the  character  of 
the  citizen. 

These,  then,  are  some  of  the  new  principles  and 
forces  which  make  for  the  permanence  of  the  re 
public:  toleration  in  religion;  general  education; 
better  domestic  relations;  attention  to  the  means 
of  public  health  and  pleasure ;  publicity ;  corpora- 

66 


Republic  May  Endure 

tion  service ;  increased  mutual  dependence  of  man 
on  man,  and  therewith  a  growing  sense  of  brother 
hood  and  unity ;  the  greater  hopefulness  and  cheer 
fulness  of  men's  outlook  on  man,  the  earth,  the 
universe,  and  God;  and  finally,  the  changing  ob 
jects  and  methods  of  religion  and  its  institutions. 
It  is  the  working  of  these  principles  and  forces, 
often  unrecognized,  which  has  carried  the  republic 
safely  through  many  moral  difficulties  and  dangers 
during  the  past  thirty  years.  These  things,  and 
not  its  size  and  wealth,  make  us  love  our  country. 
These  things,  we  believe,  will  give  the  American 
republic  long  life.  These  bulwarks  of  the  common 
wealth  will  prove  all  the  stronger  and  more  lasting, 
because  women  as  well  as  men  can  work  on  them, 
and  help  to  transmit  them,  ever  broader  and  firmer, 
from  generation  to  generation. 


THE  WORKING  OF  THE  AMERICAN 
DEMOCRACY 

ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  FRATERNITY  PHI  BETA  KAPPA,  OF  HARVARD 
UNIVERSITY,  JUNE  28,   1888 


5* 


THE  WORKING  OF 
THE  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 


IPUEPOSE  to  examine  some  parts  of  the  ex 
perience  of  the  American  democracy,  with  the 
intention  of  suggesting  the  answers  to  certain  theo 
retical  objections  which  have  been  urged  against 
democracy  in  general,  and  of  showing  in  part 
what  makes  the  strength  of  the  democratic  form 
of  government. 

For  more  than  a  hundred  years  there  has  been 
among  civilized  nations  a  decided  set  of  opinion 
toward  democratic  institutions ;  but  in  Europe  this 
set  has  been  determined  rather  by  unfavorable  ex 
perience  of  despotic  and  oligarchic  forms  of  gov 
ernment  than  by  any  favorable  experience  of  the 
democratic  form.  Government  by  one  and  gov 
ernment  by  a  few  have  been  tried  through  many 
centuries,  by  different  races  of  men,  and  under  all 
sorts  of  conditions  ;  but  neither  has  ever  succeeded 
—  not  even  in  England  —  in  producing  a  reason 
ably  peaceful,  secure,  and  also  happy  society.  No 
lesson  upon  this  subject  could  be  more  forcible 


The  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

than  that  which  modern  Europe  teaches.  Empires 
and  monarchies,  like  patriarchies  and  chieftain 
ships,  have  doubtless  served  their  turn;  but  they 
have  signally  failed  to  realize  the  social  ideals 
—  some  ancient  and  some  modern  in  origin  — 
which  have  taken  firm  hold  of  men's  minds  since 
the  American  Revolution.  This  failure  extends 
through  all  society,  from  top  to  bottom.  It  is  as 
conspicuous  in  the  moral  condition  of  the  upper 
classes  as  in  the  material  condition  of  the  lower. 
Oligarchies  call  themselves  aristocracies ;  but  gov 
ernment  by  the  few  has  never  really  been  govern 
ment  by  the  best.  Therefore  mankind  tends  to 
seek  the  realization  of  its  ideals  in  broad-based 
forms  of  government. 

It  can  hardly  be  said  that  Europe  has  any  ex 
perience  of  democracy  which  is  applicable  to  a 
modern  state.  G-allant  little  Switzerland  lives  in 
a  mountain  fastness,  and  exists  by  the  sufferance 
of  powerful  neighbors,  each  jealous  of  the  other. 
No  lessons  for  modern  use  can  be  drawn  from  the 
transient  city  democracies  of  ancient  or  medieval 
times.  The  city  as  a  unit  of  government  organiza 
tion  has  gone  forever,  with  the  glories  of  Athens, 
Rome,  and  Florence.  Throughout  this  century  a 
beneficent  tendency  has  been  manifested  toward 
the  formation  of  great  national  units.  Witness  the 
expansion  of  Russia  and  the  United  States,  the 
creation  of  the  German  empire,  the  union  of  Aus 
tria,  Hungary,  and  Bohemia,  and  the  unification 
of  Italy.  At  least,  within  these  great  units  prevail 
a  common  peace  and  an  unrestricted  trade.  The 

72 


The  Working  of  the  American  Democracy 

blessings  which  result  from  holding  vast  territories 
and  multitudes  under  one  national  government  are 
so  great  that  none  but  large  governments  have  any 
future  before  them.  To  succeed,  democracy  must 
show  itself  able  to  control  both  territory  and  popu 
lation  on  a  continental  scale ;  therefore  its  methods 
must  be  representative  —  which  means  that  they 
are  necessarily  deliberative,  and  are  likely  to  be 
conservative  and  slow.  Of  such  government  by 
the  many,  Europe  has  no  trustworthy  experience, 
either  in  ancient  or  in  modern  times.  The  so- 
called  democracies  of  Greece  and  Eome  were  really 
governments  by  a  small  caste  of  free  citizens  rul 
ing  a  multitude  of  aliens  and  slaves:  hasty  and 
tyrannical  themselves,  they  naturally  prepared  the 
way  for  tyrants.  Yet  when  all  the  world  were 
slaves,  that  caste  of  free  citizens  was  a  wonderful 
invention.  France,  since  the  Revolution,  has  ex 
hibited  some  fugitive  specimens  of  democratic 
rule,  but  has  had  no  stable  government  of  any 
sort,  whether  tyranny,  oligarchy,  or  democracy. 
In  short,  such  experience  as  Europe  has  had  of  so- 
called  democracies — with  the  exception  of  admira 
ble  Switzerland  —  is  worse  than  useless ;  for  it  is 
thoroughly  misleading,  and  has  misled  many  acute 
observers  of  political  phenomena. 

In  this  absence  of  available  European  experience, 
where  can  mankind  look  for  trustworthy  evidence 
concerning  the  practical  working  of  democratic  in 
stitutions?  Solely  to  the  United  States.  The 
Australasian  colonies  will  before  long  contribute 
valuable  evidence;  but  at  present  their  population 

73 


The  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

is  small,  and  their  experience  is  too  recent  to  be 
of  great  value  to  students  of  comparative  politics. 
Yet  it  is  upon  experience,  and  experience  alone, 
that  safe  conclusions  can  be  based  concerning  the 
merits  and  the  faults  of  democracy.  On  politics, 
speculative  writing — even  by  able  men  like  Sir 
George  Cornewall  Lewis  and  Sir  Henry  Maine — is 
as  perilous  as  it  is  on  biology;  and  prophecy  is 
still  more  dangerous.  To  the  modern  mind,  ideal 
states  like  Plato's  Republic,  Sir  Thomas  More's 
Utopia,  and  Saint  Augustine's  Civitas  Dei,  are 
utterly  uninteresting — particularly  when  they  rest 
upon  such  visionary  postulates  as  community  of 
goods  and  community  of  wives  and  children.  The 
stable  state  must  have  its  roots  in  use  and  wont,  in 
familiar  customs  and  laws,  and  in  the  inherited 
habits  of  successive  generations.  But  it  is  only  in 
the  United  States  that  a  well-rooted  democracy 
upon  a  great  scale  has  ever  existed ;  and  hence  the 
importance  of  accurate  observation  and  just  judg 
ment  of  the  working  of  American  democratic  in 
stitutions,  both  political  and  social.  Upon  the  suc 
cess  of  those  institutions  rest  the  best  hopes  of  the 
world. 

In  discussing  some  parts  of  our  national  ex 
perience,  I  intend  to  confine  myself  to  moral  and 
intellectual  phenomena,  and  shall  have  little  to  say 
about  the  material  prosperity  of  the  country.  The 
rapid  growth  of  the  United  States  in  population, 
wealth,  and  everything  which  constitutes  material 
strength  is,  indeed,  marvelous;  but  this  concom- 

74 


The  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

itant  of  the  existence  of  democratic  institutions 
in  a  fertile  land,  rich  also  in  minerals,  ores,  oil,  and 
gas,  has  often  been  dilated  upon,  and  may  be  dis 
missed  with  only  two  remarks :  first,  that  a  great 
deal  of  moral  vigor  has  been  put  into  the  material 
development  of  the  United  States;  and  secondly, 
that  wide-spread  comfort  ought  to  promote  rather 
than  to  hinder  the  civilizing  of  a  people.  Sensible 
and  righteous  government  ought  ultimately  to 
make  a  nation  rich;  and  although  this  proposition 
cannot  be  directly  reversed,  yet  diffused  well-being, 
comfort,  and  material  prosperity  establish  a  fair 
presumption  in  favor  of  the  government  and  the 
prevailing  social  conditions  under  which  these 
blessings  have  been  secured. 

The  first  question  I  wish  to  deal  with  is  a  funda 
mental  one :  How  wisely,  and  by  what  process,  has 
the  American  people  made  up  its  mind  upon  public 
questions  of  supreme  difficulty  and  importance? 
Not  how  will  it,  or  how  might  it,  make  up  its 
mind;  but  how  has  it  made  up  its  mind!  It  is 
commonly  said  that  the  multitude,  being  ignorant 
and  untrained,  cannot  reach  so  wise  a  conclusion 
upon  questions  of  state  as  the  cultivated  few ;  that 
the  wisdom  of  a  mass  of  men  can  only  be  an 
average  wisdom  at  the  best ;  and  that  democracy, 
which  in  things  material  levels  up,  in  things  intel 
lectual  and  moral  levels  down.  Even  De  Tocque- 
ville  says  that  there  is  a  middling  standard  of 
knowledge  in  a  democracy,  to  which  some  rise  and 
others  descend.  Let  us  put  these  speculative  opin 
ions,  which  have  so  plausible  a  sound,  in  contrast 

75 


Tbe  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

with  American  facts,  and  see  what  conclusions  are 
to  be  drawn. 

The  people  of  this  country  have  had  three  supreme 
questions  to  settle  within  the  last  hundred  and 
thirty  years :  first,  the  question  of  independence  of 
Great  Britain ;  secondly,  the  question  of  forming  a 
firm  federal  union;  and  thirdly,  the  question  of 
maintaining  that  union  at  whatever  cost  of  blood 
and  treasure.  In  the  decision  of  these  questions, 
four  generations  of  men  took  active  part.  The  first 
two  questions  were  settled  by  a  population  mainly 
English;  but  when  the  third  was  decided,  the 
foreign  admixture  was  already  considerable.  That 
graver  or  more  far-reaching  political  problems 
could  be  presented  to  any  people,  it  is  impossible 
to  imagine.  Everybody  can  now  see  that  in  each 
case  the  only  wise  decision  was  arrived  at  by  the 
multitude,  in  spite  of  difficulties  and  dangers  which 
many  contemporary  statesmen  and  publicists  of 
our  own  and  other  lands  thought  insuperable.  It 
is  quite  the  fashion  to  laud  to  the  skies  the  second 
of  these  three  great  achievements  of  the  American 
democracy ;  but  the  creation  of  the  Federal  Union, 
regarded  as  a  wise  determination  of  a  multitude  of 
voters,  was  certainly  not  more  remarkable  than  the 
other  two.  No  government — tyranny  or  oligarchy, 
despotic  or  constitutional — could  possibly  have 
made  wiser  decisions  or  executed  them  more  reso 
lutely,  as  the  event  has  proved  in  each  of  the  three 
cases  mentioned. 

So  much  for  the  wisdom  of  these  great  resolves. 
Now,  by  what  process  were  they  arrived  at  1 


The  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

In  each  case  the  process  was  slow,  covering 
many  years  during  which  discussion  and  debate 
went  on  in  pulpits,  legislatures,  public  meetings, 
newspapers,  and  books.  The  best  minds  of  the 
country  took  part  in  these  prolonged  debates. 
Party  passions  were  aroused;  advocates  on  each 
side  disputed  before  the  people ;  the  authority  of 
recognized  political  leaders  was  invoked;  public 
spirit  and  selfish  interest  were  appealed  to;  and 
that  vague  but  powerful  sentiment  called  love  of 
country,  felt  equally  by  high  and  low,  stirred  men's 
hearts  and  lit  the  intellectual  combat  with  lofty 
emotion.  In  presence  of  such  a  protracted  discus 
sion,  a  multitude  of  interested  men  make  up  their 
minds  just  as  one  interested  man  does.  They  listen, 
compare  what  they  hear  with  their  own  experience, 
consider  the  bearings  of  the  question  on  then:  own 
interests,  and  consult  their  self-respect,  their  hopes, 
and  their  fears.  Not  one  in  a  thousand  of  them 
could  originate,  or  even  state  with  precision,  the  ar 
guments  he  hears ;  not  one  in  a  thousand  could  give 
a  clear  account  of  his  own  observations,  processes 
of  thought,  and  motives  of  action  upon  the  subject, 
— but  the  collective  judgment  is  informed  and 
guided  by  the  keener  wits  and  stronger  wills,  and 
the  collective  wisdom  is  higher  and  surer  in  guid 
ing  public  conduct  than  that  of  one  mind  or  of 
several  superior  minds  uninstructed  by  million-eyed 
observation  and  million-tongued  debate. 

In  all  three  of  the  great  popular  decisions  under 
consideration,  most  remarkable  discernment,  pa 
tience,  and  resolution  were,  as  a  fact,  displayed.  If 

77 


The  Working  of  the  American  Democracy 

these  were  the  average  qualities  of  the  many,  then 
the  average  mental  and  moral  powers  of  the  multi 
tude  suffice  for  greatest  deeds;  if  they  were  the 
qualities  of  the  superior  few  infused  into  the  many 
by  speech  and  press,  by  exhortation,  example,  and 
leadership,  even  then  the  assertion  that  the  opera 
tive  opinions  of  the  unlearned  mass  on  questions 
of  state  must  necessarily  be  foolish,  their  honesty 
only  an  ordinary  honesty,  and  their  sentiments 
vulgar,  falls  to  the  ground.  The  multitude,  it 
would  seem,  either  can  distil  essential  wisdom  from 
a  seething  mass  of  heterogeneous  evidence  and 
opinion,  or  can  be  inspired,  like  a  single  individual, 
from  without  and  above  itself.  If  the  practical 
wisdom  of  the  multitude  in  action  be  attributed  to 
the  management  or  to  the  influence  of  a  sagacious 
few,  the  wise  result  proves  that  these  leaders  were 
well  chosen  by  some  process  of  natural  selection, 
instead  of  being  designated,  as  in  an  oligarchy,  by 
the  inheritance  of  artificial  privileges. 

It  is  fair  to  say  that  one  reason  why  democratic 
decisions  of  great  public  questions  are  apt  to  turn 
out  well,  and  therefore  to  seem  to  posterity  to  have 
been  wise,  is,  that  the  state  of  the  public  mind  and 
will  is  an  all-important  factor  in  determining  the 
issue  of  such  questions.  Democracy  vigorously 
executing  its  own  purpose  demonstrates  by  the 
issue  its  wisdom  before  the  event.  Indeed,  this  is 
one  of  the  most  legitimate  and  important  advan 
tages  of  the  democratic  form  of  government. 

There  is  a  limited  sense  in  which  it  is  true  that 
in  the  United  States  the  average  man  predomi- 

78 


Tbe  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

nates ;  but  the  political  ideas  which  have  predomi 
nated  in  the  United  States,  and  therefore  in  the 
mind  and  will  of  the  average  man, — equality  before 
the  law,  national  independence,  federation,  and  in 
dissoluble  union, —  are  ideas  not  of  average  but  of 
superlative  merit.  It  is  also  true  that  the  common 
school  and  the  newspaper  echo  received  opinion, 
and  harp  on  moral  commonplaces.  But  unfortu 
nately  there  are  many  accepted  humane  opinions 
and  ethical  commonplaces  which  have  never  yet 
been  embodied  in  national  legislation, — much  less 
in  international  law, — and  which  may  therefore 
still  be  repeated  to  some  advantage.  If  that  com 
prehensive  commonplace,  "  Ye  are  all  members  one 
of  another,"  could  be  realized  in  international  rela 
tions,  there  would  be  an  end  of  war  and  industrial 
isolation. 

Experience  has  shown  that  democracy  must  not 
be  expected  to  decide  wisely  about  things  in  which 
it  feels  no  immediate  concern.  Unless  its  interests 
are  affected  or  its  sentiments  touched,  it  will  not 
take  the  pains  necessary  to  arrive  at  just  conclu 
sions.  To  engage  public  attention  sufficiently  to 
procure  legislation  is  the  reformer's  chief  difficulty 
in  a  democracy.  Questions  of  war,  peace,  or  hu 
man  rights,  and  questions  which  concern  the  na 
tional  unity,  dignity,  or  honor,  win  the  attention  of 
the  many.  Indeed,  the  greatest  political  questions 
are  precisely  those  in  which  the  many  have  con 
cern  ;  for  they  suffer  the  penalties  of  discord,  war, 
and  public  wrong-doing.  But  it  is  curiously  diffi 
cult  to  secure  from  multitudes  of  voters  effective 

79 


The  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

dealing  with  questions  which  relate  merely  to  taxa 
tion,  expenditure,  administration,  trade,  or  manufac 
tures.  On  these  lesser  matters  the  multitude  will 
not  declare  itself  until  evils  multiply  intolerably. 
We  need  not  be  surprised,  however,  that  the  intel 
ligence  and  judgment  of  the  multitude  can  be 
brought  into  play  only  when  they  think  their  own 
interests  are  to  be  touched.  All  experience,  both 
ancient  and  modern,  shows  that  when  the  few  rule, 
they  do  not  attend  to  the  interests  of  the  many. 

I  shall  next  consider  certain  forms  of  mental  and 
moral  activity  which  the  American  democracy  de 
mands  of  hundreds  -of  thousands  of  the  best  citi 
zens,  but  which  are  without  parallel  in  despotic 
and  oligarchic  states.  I  refer  to  the  widely  dif 
fused  and  ceaseless  activity  which  maintains,  first, 
the  immense  Federal  Union,  with  all  its  various 
subdivisions  into  States,  counties,  and  towns; 
secondly,  the  voluntary  system  in  religion;  and 
thirdly,  the  voluntary  system  in  the  higher  in 
struction. 

To  have  carried  into  successful  practice  on  a 
great  scale  the  federative  principle,  which  binds 
many  semi-independent  States  into  one  nation,  is 
a  good  work  done  for  all  peoples.  Federation 
promises  to  counteract  the  ferocious  quarrelsome 
ness  of  mankind,  and  to  abolish  the  jealousy\  of 
trade ;  but  its  price  in  mental  labor  and  moral  ini 
tiative  is  high.  It  is  a  system  which  demands  not 
only  vital  force  at  the  heart  of  the  state,  but  a 
diffused  vitality  in  every  part.  In  a  despotic  gov- 

80 


The  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

eminent  the  intellectual  and  moral  force  of  the 
whole  organism  radiates  from  the  central  seat  of 
power ;  in  a  federal  union  political  vitality  must  be 
diffused  throughout  the  whole  organism,  as  animal 
heat  is  developed  and  maintained  in  every  mole 
cule  of  the  entire  body.  The  success  of  the  United 
States  as  a  federal  union  has  been  and  is  effected 
by  the  watchfulness,  industry,  and  public  spirit  of 
millions  of  men  who  spend  in  that  noble  cause  the 
greater  part  of  their  leisure,  and  of  the  mental 
force  which  can  be  spared  from  bread-winning 
occupations.  The  costly  expenditure  goes  on  with 
out  ceasing,  all  over  the  country,  wherever  citizens 
come  together  to  attend  to  the  affairs  of  the  village, 
town,  county,  or  State.  This  is  the  price  of  liberty 
and  union.  The  well-known  promptness  and  skill 
of  Americans  in  organizing  a  new  community  re 
sult  from  the  fact  that  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
Americans  —  and  their  fathers  before  them  — have 
had  practice  in  managing  public  affairs.  To  get 
this  practice  costs  time,  labor,  and  vitality,  which 
in  a  despotic  or  oligarchic  state  are  seldom  spent 
in  this  direction. 

The  successful  establishment  and  support  of  re 
ligious  institutions,  —  churches,  seminaries,  and 
religious  charities, —  upon  a  purely  voluntary  sys 
tem,  is  another  unprecedented  achievement  of  the 
American  democracy.  In  only  three  generations 
American  democratic  society  has  effected  the  com 
plete  separation  of  church  and  state,  a  reform 
which  no  other  people  has  ever  attempted.  Yet 
religious  institutions  are  not  stinted  in  the  United 
6  81  /* 


The  Working  of  the  American  Democracy 

States ;  on  the  contrary,  they  abound  and  thrive, 
and  all  alike  are  protected  and  encouraged,  but 
not  supported,  by  the  state.  Who  has  taken  up 
the  work  which  the  state  has  relinquished  ?  Some 
body  has  had  to  do  it,  for  the  work  is  done.  Who 
provides  the  money  to  build  churches,  pay  salaries, 
conduct  missions,  and  educate  ministers!  Who 
supplies  the  brains  for  organizing  and  maintaining 
these  various  activities  ?  This  is  the  work,  not  of 
a  few  officials,  but  of  millions  of  intelligent  and  de 
voted  men  and  women  scattered  through  all  the 
villages  and  cities  of  the  broad  land.  The  mainte 
nance  of  churches,  seminaries,  and  charities  by 
voluntary  contributions  and  by  the  administrative 
labors  of  volunteers,  implies  an  enormous  and  in 
cessant  expenditure  of  mental  and  moral  force.  It 
is  a  force  which  must  ever  be  renewed  from  genera 
tion  to  generation ;  for  it  is  a  personal  force,  con 
stantly  expiring,  and  as  constantly  to  be  replaced. 
Into  the  maintenance  of  the  voluntary  system  in 
religion  has  gone  a  good  part  of  the  moral  energy 
which  three  generations  have  been  able  to  spare 
from  the  work  of  getting  a  living ;  but  it  is  worth 
the  sacrifice,  and  will  be  accounted  in  history  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  feats  of  American  public 
spirit  and  faith  in  freedom. 

A  similar  exhibition  of  diffused  mental  and  moral 
energy  has  accompanied  the  establishment  and  the 
development  of  a  system  of  higher  instruction  in 
the  United  States,  with  no  inheritance  of  monastic 
endowments,  and  no  gifts  from  royal  or  ecclesias 
tical  personages  disposing  of  great  resources  de- 

82 


Tbe  Working  of  the  American  Democracy 

rived  from  the  state,  and  with  but  scanty  help  from 
the  public  purse.  Whoever  is  familiar  with  the  col 
leges  and  universities  of  the  United  States  knows 
that  the  creation  of  these  democratic  institutions 
has  cost  the  life-work  of  thousands  of  devoted  men. 
At  the  sacrifice  of  other  aspirations,  and  under 
heavy  discouragements  and  disappointments,  but 
with  faith  and  hope,  these  teachers  and  trustees 
have  built  up  institutions,  which,  however  imper 
fect,  have  cherished  scientific  enthusiasm,  fostered 
piety,  literature,  art,  and  maintained  the  standards 
of  honor  and  public  duty,  and  steadily  kept  in 
view  the  ethical  ideas  which  democracy  cherishes. 
It  has  been  a  popular  work,  to  which  large  numbers 
of  people  in  successive  generations  have  contrib 
uted  of  their  substance  or  of  their  labor.  The  en 
dowment  of  institutions  of  education,  including 
libraries  and  museums,  by  private  persons  in  the 
United  States,  is  a  phenomenon  without  precedent 
or  parallel,  and  is  a  legitimate  effect  of  democratic 
institutions.  Under  a  tyranny  —  were  it  that  of  a 
Marcus  Aurelius  —  or  an  oligarchy — were  it  as  en 
lightened  as  that  which  now  rules  Germany —  such 
a  phenomenon  would  be  simply  impossible.  The 
University  of  Strasburg  was  lately  established  by 
an  imperial  decree,  and  is  chiefly  maintained  out 
of  the  revenue  of  the  state.  Harvard  University 
has  been  250  years  in  growing  to  its  present  §tat- 
ure,  and  is  even  now  inferior  at  many  points  to 
the  new  University  of  Strasburg ;  but  Harvard  is 
the  creation  of  thousands  of  persons,  living  and 
dead,  rich  and  poor,  learned  and  simple,  who  have 

83 


The  Working  of  the  American  Democracy 

voluntarily  given  it  their  time,  thought,  or  money, 
and  lavished  upon  it  their  affection ;  Strasburg  ex 
ists  by  the  mandate  of  the  ruling  few  directing 
upon  it  a  part  of  the  product  of  ordinary  taxation. 
Like  the  voluntary  system  in  religion,  the  volun 
tary  system  in  the  higher  education  fortifies  de 
mocracy;  each  demands  from  the  community  a 
large  outlay  of  intellectual  activity  and  moral 
vigor. 

There  is  another  direction  in  which  the  people  of 
the  United  States  have  spent  and  are  now  spending 
a  vast  amount  of  intellectual  and  moral  energy — a 
direction  not,  as  in  the  three  cases  just  considered, 
absolutely  peculiar  to  the  American  republic,  but 
still  highly  characteristic  of  democracy.  I  mean 
the  service  of  corporations.  Within  the  last  hun 
dred  years  the  American  people  have  invented  a 
new  and  large  application  of  the  ancient  principle 
of  incorporation.  We  are  so  accustomed  to  corpo 
rations  as  indispensable  agents  in  carrying  on  great 
public  works  and  services,  and  great  industrial  or 
financial  operations,  that  we  forget  the  very  recent 
development  of  the  corporation  with  limited  liabil 
ity  as  a  common  business  agent.  Prior  to  1789 
there  were  only  two  corporations  for  business  pur 
poses  in  Massachusetts.  The  English  general  stat 
ute  which  provides  for  incorporation  with  limited 
liability  dates  only  from  1855.  No  other  nation  has 
made  such  general  or  such  successful  use  of  corpo 
rate  powers  as  the  American  —  and  for  the  reason 
that  the  method  is  essentially  a  democratic  method, 

84  ' 


The  Working  of  the  American  Democracy 

suitable  for  a  country  in  which  great  individual  or 
family  properties  are  rare,  and  small  properties  are 
numerous.  Freedom  of  incorporation  makes  possi 
ble  great  combinations  of  small  capitals,  and,  while 
winning  the  advantages  of  concentrated  manage 
ment,  permits  diffused  ownership.  These  merits 
have  been  quickly  understood  and  turned  to  ac 
count  by  the  American  democracy.  The  service  of 
many  corporations  has  become  even  more  impor 
tant  than  the  service  of  the  several  States  of  the 
Union.  The  managers  of  great  companies  have 
trusts  reposed  in  them  which  are  matched  only  in 
the  highest  executive  offices  of  the  nation;  and 
they  are  relatively  free  from  the  numerous  checks 
and  restrictions  under  which  the  highest  national 
officials  must  always  act.  The  activity  of  corpora 
tions,  great  and  small,  penetrates  every  part  of  the 
industrial  and  social  body,  and  their  daily  mainte 
nance  brings  into  play  more  mental  and  moral 
force  than  the  maintenance  of  all  the  governments 
on  the  Continent  combined. 

These  propositions  can  easily  be  illustrated  by 
actual  examples.  I  find  established  at  Boston,  for 
instance,  the  headquarters  of  a  railroad  corporation 
which  employs  18,000  persons,  has  gross  receipts  of 
about  $40,000,000  a  year,  and  on  occasion  pays  its 
best-paid  officer  a  salary  of  $35,000.  I  find  there 
also  the  central  office  of  a  manufacturing  establish 
ment  which  employs  more  than  6000  persons,  has 
a  gross  annual  income  of  more  than  $7,000,000,  and 
pays  its  best-paid  officer  $20,000  a  year.  The  gross 
receipts  of  the  Pennsylvania  Eailroad  system  are 
6*  85 


The  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

$115,000,000  a  year,  the  highest-paid  official  of  the 
company  receives  a  salary  of  $30,000,  and  the  whole 
system  employs  100,000  men.  A  comparison  of  such 
figures  with  the  corresponding  figures  for  the  pros 
perous  and  respectable  Commonwealth  of  Massa 
chusetts  is  not  uninstructive.  The  gross  receipts  of 
the  Commonwealth  are  about  $7,000,000  a  year,  the 
highest  salary  it  pays  is  $6,500,  and  there  are  not 
more  than  6,000  persons  in  its  employ  for  any  con 
siderable  part  of  the  year. 

In  the  light  of  such  facts,  it  is  easy  to  see  some  of 
the  reasons  why  American  corporations  command 
the  services  of  men  of  high  capacity  and  character, 
who  in  other  countries  or  in  earlier  times  would  have 
been  in  the  service  of  the  state.  In  American  dem 
ocratic  society  corporations  supplement  the  agen 
cies  of  the  state,  and  their  functions  have  such 
importance  in  determining  conditions  of  labor,  dif 
fusing  comfort  and  general  well-being  among  mil 
lions  of  people,  and  utilizing  innumerable  large 
streams  and  little  rills  of  capital,  that  the  upper 
grades  of  their  service  are  reached  by  merit,  are 
filled,  as  a  rule,  upon  a  tenure  during  good  behavior 
and  efficiency,  are  well  paid,  and  have  great  dignity 
and  consideration.  Of  the  enormous  material  ben 
efits  which  have  resulted  from  the  American  exten 
sion  of  the  principle  of  incorporation,  I  need  say 
nothing.  I  wish  only  to  point  out  that  freedom 
of  incorporation,  though  no  longer  exclusively 
a  democratic  agency,  has  given  strong  support 
to  democratic  institutions;  and  that  a  great 
wealth  of  intellect,  energy,  and  fidelity  is  devoted 

86 


I 


The  Working  of  the  American  Democracy 

to  the  service  of  corporations  by  their  officers  and 
directors. 

The  four  forms  of  mental  and  moral  activity 
which  I  have  been  considering  —  that  which  main 
tains  political  vitality  throughout  the  Federal 
Union ;  that  which  supports  unsubsidized  religious 
institutions;  that  which  develops  the  higher  in 
struction  in  the  arts  and  sciences,  and  trains  men 
for  all  the  professions ;  and  that  which  is  applied 
to  the  service  of  corporations  —  all  illustrate  the 
educating  influence  of  democratic  institutions  —  an 
influence  which  foreign  observers  are  apt  to  over 
look  or  underestimate.  The  ballot  is  not  the  only 
political  institution  which  has  educated  the  Ameri 
can  democracy.  Democracy  is  a  training-school  in 
which  multitudes  learn  in  many  ways  to  take 
thought  for  others,  to  exercise  public  functions, 
and  to  bear  public  responsibilities. 

So  many  critics  of  the  theory  of  democracy  have 
maintained  that  a  democratic  government  would 
be  careless  of  public  obligations,  and  unjust  toward 
private  property,  that  it  will  be  interesting  to  in 
quire  what  a  century  of  American  experience 
indicates  upon  this  important  point.  Has  there 
been  any  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  American 
democracy  to  create  exaggerated  public  debts,  to 
throw  the  burden  of  public  debts  on  posterity 
rather  than  on  the  present  generation,  or  to  favor 
in  legislation  the  poorer  sort  as  against  the  richer, 
the  debtor  as  against  the  creditor  I 

The  answer  to  the  question  is  not  doubtful. 
With  the  exception  of  the  sudden  creation  of  the 


The  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

great  national  debt  occasioned  by  the  Civil  War, 
the  American  communities  have  been  very  moder 
ate  in  borrowing,  the  State  debts  being  for  the  most 
part  insignificant,  and  the  city  debts  far  below  the 
English  standard.  Moreover,  these  democratic  com 
munities,  with  a  few  local  and  temporary  excep 
tions,  pay  their  public  debts  more  promptly  than 
any  state  under  the  rule  of  a  despot  or  a  class  has 
ever  done.  The  government  of  the  United  States 
has  once  paid  the  whole  of  its  public  debt,  and  is 
in  a  fair  way  to  perform  that  feat  again.  So  much 
for  democratic  treatment  of  public  obligations. 
^  It  is  conceivable,  however,  that  the  popular 
masses  should  think  it  for  their  own  interest  to 
keep  down  and  pay  off  public  indebtedness,  and  yet 
should  discriminate  in  legislation  in  favor  of  the 
majority  who  are  not  well  off,  and  against  the 
minority  who  are.  There  are  two  points,  and  only 
two  points,  so  far  as  I  know,  at  which  permanent 
American  legislation  has,  as  a  fact,  intentionally 
discriminated  in  favor  of  the  poor.  The  several 
States,  as  a  rule,  exempt  from  taxation  household 
effects  and  personal  property  to  a  moderate 
amount,  and  the  tools  of  farmers  and  mechanics. 
The  same  articles  and  a  few  others  like  them 
are  also  commonly  exempted  from  attachment  for 
debt,  together  often  with  a  homestead  not  exceed 
ing  in  value  one  thousand  dollars.  The  exemp 
tions  from  attachment,  and  even  those  from 
taxation,  will  cover  all  the  property  of  many  poor 
persons  and  families ;  yet  this  legislation  is  humane 
and  worthy  of  respect,  being  analogous  to  the  com- 

88 


Tbe  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

mon  provision  which  exempts  from  all  taxation 
persons  who,  by  reason  of  age  or  infirmity,  may, 
in  the  judgment  of  the  assessors,  be  unable  to  con 
tribute  to  the  public  charges.  It  is  intended  to 
prevent  cases  of  hardship  in  the  collection  either 
of  taxes  or  of  debts ;  and  doubtless  the  exemptions 
from  attachment  are  designed  also  to  leave  to  the 
debtor  a  fair  chance  of  recovery. 

After  observing  the  facts  of  a  full  century,  one 
may  therefore  say  of  the  American  democracy  that 
it  has  contracted  public  debt  with  moderation,  paid 
it  with  unexampled  promptness,  acquired  as  good 
a  public  credit  as  the  world  has  ever  known,  made 
private  property  secure,  and  shown  no  tendency  to 
attack  riches  or  to  subsidize  poverty,  or  in  either 
direction  to  violate  the  fundamental  principle  of 
democracy,  that  all  men  are  equal  before  the  law. 
The  significance  of  these  facts  is  prodigious.  They 
mean  that,  as  regards  private  property  and  its 
security,  a  government  by  the  many,  for  the  many, 
is  more  to  be  trusted  than  any  other  form  of  govern 
ment  ;  and  that  as  regards  public  indebtedness,  an 
experienced  democracy  is  more  likely  to  exhibit 
just  sentiments  and  practical  good  judgment  than 
an  oligarchy  or  a  tyranny. 

An  argument  against  democracy,  which  evi 
dently  had  great  weight  with  Sir  Henry  Maine, 
because  he  supposed  it  to  rest  upon  the  experience 
of  mankind,  is  stated  as  follows:  Progress  and 
reformation  have  always  been  the  work  of  the 
few,  and  have  been  opposed  by  the  many ;  there- 

89 


The  Working  of  the  American  Democracy 

i 

j  fore  democracies  will  be  obstructive.    This  argu 
ment    is    completely  refuted    by  the    first  cen 
tury  of  'the   American   democracy,  alike  in    the 
fielcj  of  morals  and  jurisprudence,  and  the  field 
of  'manufactures   and    trade.     Nowhere,    for    in 
stance,  has  the'-great  principle  of  religious  tolera 
tion/been  so  thoroughly  put  in  practice  as  in  the 
United    States;    nowhere    have   such  well-meant 
ancT, persistent,  efforts  been  made  to  improve  the 
legal  statu^  of   women;   nowhere   has   the    con 
duct    of  *  hospitals,   asylums,    reformatories,    and 
prisons  been  more  carefully  studied  ;  nowhere  have 
legislative  remedies  for  acknowledged  abuses  "and 
evils  b^en  more  promptly  and  perseveringly  sought. 
There  was  a  certain  plausibility  in  the  idea  that 
.the  multitude,  who  live  by  labor  in  established 
%.inodes,  would-be  opposed  to  inventions  which  would 
^  inevitabl'y  cause  industrial  revolutions ;  but  Ameri- 
V  can  experience  completely  upsets  this  notion.    For 
promptness  in  making  physical  forces  and  machin 
ery  do  the  work  of  men,  the  people  of  the  United 
•  Stattes  surpass  incontestably  all  other  peoples.    The 
ypeqple  that  invented  and  introduced  with  perfect 
commercial  success  the  river  steamboat,  the  cotton- 
".  gin^  the  parlor-car  and  the  sleeping-car,  the  grain- 
elevator,  the  street  railway — both  surface  and  ele- 
*vated  —  the  telegraph,  the  telephone,  the    rapid 
printing-press,  the  cheap  book  and  newspaper,  the 
sewing-machine,  the  steam  fire-engine,  agricultural 
machinery,  the  pipe-lines  for  natural  oil  and  gas, 
and  machine-made  clothing,  boots,  furniture,  tools, 
screws,  wagons,  fire-arms,  and  watches  —  this  is 

90 


The  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

not  a  people  to  vote  down  or  hinder  labor-saving 
invention  or  beneficent  industrial  revolution.  The 
fact  is  that  in  a  democracy  the  interests  of  the 
greater  number  will  ultimately  prevail,  as  they, 
should.  It  was  the  stage-drivers  and  inn-keepers, 
not  the  multitude,  who  wished  to  suppress  the  loco 
motive  ;  it  is  some  publishers  and  typographical 
unions,  not  the  mass  of  the  people,  who  wrongly 
imagine  that  they  have  an  interest  in  making  books 
dearer  than  they  need  be.  Furthermore,  a  just 
liberty  of  combination  and  perfect  equality  before 
the  law,  such  as  prevail  in  a  democracy,  enable 
men  or  companies  to  engage  freely  in  new  under 
takings  at  their  own  risk,  and  bring  them  to  trium 
phant  success,  if  success  be  in  them,  whether  the 
multitude  approve  them  or  not.  The  consent  of 
the  multitude  is  not  necessary  to  the  success  of  a 
printing-press  which  prints  twenty  thousand  copies 
of  a  newspaper  in  an  hour,  or  of  a  machine  cutter 
which  cuts  out  twenty  overcoats  at  one  chop.  In 
short,  the  notion  that  democracy  will  hinder  re 
ligious,  political,  and  social  reformation  and  pro 
gress,  or  restrain  commercial  and  industrial  im 
provement,  is  a  chimera. 

There  is  another  criticism  of  the  working  of 
democratic  institutions,  more  formidable  than  the 
last,  which  the  American  democracy  is  in  a  fair 
way  to  dispose  of.  It  is  said  that  democracy  is: 
fighting  against  the  best-determined  and  most  per 
emptory  of  biological  laws,  namely,  the  law  of 
heredity,  with  which  law  the  social  structure  of 
monarchical  and  oligarchical  states  is  in  strict  con- 


Tbe  Working  of  the  American  Democracy 

formity.  This  criticism  fails  to  recognize  the  dis 
tinction  between  artificial  privileges  transmissible 
without  regard  to  inherited  virtues  or  powers,  and 
inheritable  virtues  or  powers  transmissible  without 
regard  to  hereditary  privileges.  Artificial  privi 
leges  will  be  abolished  by  a  democracy;  natural, 
inheritable  virtues  or  powers  are  as  surely  trans 
missible  under  a  democracy  as  under  any  other 
form  of  government.  Families  can  be  made  just 
as  enduring  in  a  democratic  as  in  an  oligarchic 
State,  if  family  permanence  be  desired  and  aimed 
at.  The  desire  for  the  continuity  of  vigorous  fami 
lies,  and  for  the  reproduction  of  beauty,  genius, 
and  nobility  of  character  is  universal.  "From 
fairest  creatures  we  desire  increase'7  is  the  com 
monest  of  sentiments.  The  American  v  multitude 
will  not  take  the  children  of  distinguished  persons 
on  trust;  but  it  is  delighted  when  an  able  man  has 
an  abler  son,  or  a  lovely  mother  a  lovelier  daughter. 
That  a  democracy  does  not  prescribe  the  close 
intermarriage  which  characterizes  a  strict  aris 
tocracy,  so-called,  is  physically  not  a  disadvantage, 
but  a  great  advantage  for  the  freer  society.  The 
French  nobility  and  the  English  House  of  Lords 
furnish  good  evidence  that  aristocracies  do  not  suc 
ceed  in  perpetuating  select  types  of  intellect  or  of 
character. 

In  the  future  there  will  undoubtedly  be  seen  a 
great  increase  in  the  number  of  permanent  families 
in  the  United  States  —  families  in  which  honor, 
education,  and  property  will  be  transmitted  with 
reasonable  certainty ;  and  a  fair  beginning  has  al- 

92 


Tbe  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

ready  been  made.  On  the  quinquennial  catalogue 
of  Harvard  University  there  are  about  five  hundred 
and  sixty  family  stocks,  which  have  been  repre 
sented  by  graduates  at  intervals  for  at  least  one 
hundred  years.  On  the  Yale  catalogue  there  are 
about  four  hundred  and  twenty  such  family  stocks; 
and  it  is  probable  that  all  other  American  colleges 
which  have  existed  one  hundred  years  or  more 
show  similar  facts  in  proportion  to  their  age  and 
to  the  number  of  their  graduates.  There  is  nothing 
in  American  institutions  to  prevent  this  natural 
process  from  extending  and  continuing.  The  col 
lege  graduate  who  does  not  send  his  son  to  college 
is  a  curious  exception.  American  colleges  are,  in 
deed,  chiefly  recruited  from  the  sons  of  men  who 
were  not  college-bred  themselves;  for  democratic 
society  is  mobile,  and  permits  young  men  of  ability 
to  rise  easily  from  the  lower  to  the  higher  levels. 
But  on  the  other  hand  nothing  in  the  constitution 
of  society  forces  men  down  who  have  once  risen, 
or  prevents  their  children  or  grandchildren  from 
staying  on  the  higher  level  if  they  have  the  virtue 
in  them. 

The  interest  in  family  genealogies  has  much  in 
creased  of  late  years,  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  persons  are  already  recorded  in  printed  volumes 
which  have  been  compiled  and  published  by  vol 
untary  contributions  or  by  the  zeal  of  individuals. 
In  the  Harvard  University  Library  are  four  hun 
dred  and  fifteen  American  family  genealogies,  three 
,  quarters  of  which  have  been  printed  since  1860. 
Many  of  these  families  might  better  be  called  clans 

93 


The  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

* 

or  tribes,  so  numerous  is  their  membership.  Thus 
of  the  Northampton  Lyman  family  there  were  liv 
ing,  when  the  family  genealogy  was  published  in 
1872,  more  than  four  thousand  persons.  When 
some  American  G-alton  desires  in  the  next  century 
to  study  hereditary  genius  or  character  under  a 
democracy,  he  will  find  ready  to  his  hand  an 
enormous  mass  of  material.  There  are  in  the 
United  States  one  hundred  and  forty-eight  histori 
cal  societies,  most  of  them  recently  established, 
which  give  a  large  share  of  their  attention  to  biog 
raphy,  genealogy,  necrology,  and  kindred  topics. 
Persons  and  families  of  local  note,  the  settlement 
and  development  of  new  towns,  and  the  rise  of  new 
industries  are  commemorated  by  these  societies, 
which  are  accumulating  and  preserving  materials 
for  the  philosophical  historian  who  shall  hereafter 
describe  the  social  condition  of  a  democracy  which 
in  a  hundred  years  overran  the  habitable  parts  of  a 
continent. 

Two  things  are  necessary  to  a  family  perman 
ence — education  and  bodily  vigor,  in  every  genera 
tion.  To  secure  these  two  things,  the  holding  and 
the  transmission  of  moderate  properties  in  families 
must  be  so  well  provided  for  by  law  and  custom  as 
to  be  possible  for  large  numbers  of  families.  For 
the  objects  in  view,  great  properties  are  not  so 
desirable  as  moderate  or  even  small  properties, 
since  the  transmission  of  health  and  education  with 
great  properties  is  not  so  sure  as  with  small  proper 
ties.  It  is  worth  while  to  inquire,  therefore,  what 
has  been  accomplished  under  the  reign  of  the  Ameri- 

94 


The  Working  of  the  American  Democracy 

can  democracy  in  the  way  of  making  the  holding  and 
the  transmission  of  small  properties  possible.  In 
the  first  place,  safe  investments  for  moderate  sums 
have  been  greatly  multiplied  and  made  accessible, 
as  every  trustee  knows.  Great  trust-investment 
companies  have  been  created  expressly  to  hold 
money  safely,  and  make  it  yield  a  sure  though 
small  income.  The  savings-bank  and  the  insur 
ance  company  have  been  brought  to  every  man's 
door,  the  latter  insuring  against  almost  every  kind 
of  disaster  to  which  property  and  earning  capacity 
are  liable.  Life  insurance  has  been  regulated  and 
fostered,  with  the  result  of  increasing  materially 
the  stability  of  households  and  the  chances  of 
transmitting  education  in  families.  Through  these 
and  other  agencies  it  has  been  made  more  proba 
ble  that  widows  and  orphans  will  inherit  property, 
as  well  as  easier  for  them  to  hold  that  property  se 
curely — a  very  important  point  in  connection  with 
the  permanence  of  families,  as  may  be  strikingly 
illustrated  by  the  single  statement  that  eighteen 
per  cent,  of  the  students  in  Harvard  College  have 
no  fathers  living.  Many  new  employments  have 
been  opened  to  women,  who  have  thus  been  en 
abled  more  easily  to  hold  families  together  and 
educate  their  children.  Finally,  society  has  been 
saved  in  great  measure  from  war  and  revolution, 
and  from  the  fear  of  these  calamities ;  and  thus 
family  property,  as  well  as  happiness,  has  been 
rendered  more  secure. 

The  holding  and  the  transmission  of  property  in 
families  are,  however,  only  means  to  two  ends — 

95 


Tbe  Working  of  the  American  Democracy 

namely,  education  and  health  in  successive  genera 
tions.  From  the  first,  the  American  democracy 
recognized  the  fact  that  education  was  of  supreme 
importance  to  it — the  elementary  education  for  all, 
the  higher  for  all  the  naturally  selected;  but  it 
awakened  much  later  to  the  necessity  of  attending 
to  the  health  of  the  people.  European  aristocra 
cies  have  always  secured  themselves  in  a  measure 
against  physical  degeneration  by  keeping  a  large 
proportion  of  their  men  in  training  as  soldiers  and 
sportsmen,  and  most  of  their  women  at  ease  in 
country  seats.  In  our  democratic  society,  which  \ 
at  first  thought  only  of  work  and  production,  it  is 
now  to  be  seen  that  public  attention  is  directed 
more  and  more  to  the  means  of  preserving  and  in 
creasing  health  and  vigor.  Some  of  these  means 
are  country  schools  for  city  children,  country  or 
seaside  houses  for  families,  public  parks  and  gar 
dens,  out-of-door  sports,  systematic  physical  train 
ing  in  schools  and  colleges,  vacations  for  business 
and  professional  men,  and  improvements  in  the 
dwellings  and  the  diet  of  all  classes.  Democracy 
leaves  marriages  and  social  groups  to  be  deter 
mined  by  natural  affiliation  or  congeniality  of  tastes 
and  pursuits,  which  is  the  effective  principle  in  the 
association  of  cultivated  persons  under  all  forms 
of  government.  So  far  from  having  any  quarrel 
with  the  law  of  hereditary  transmission,  it  leaves 
the  principle  of  heredity  perfectly  free  to  act ;  but 
it  does  not  add  to  the  natural  sanctions  of  that 
principle  an  unnecessary  bounty  of  privileges  con 
ferred  by  law. 


Tbe  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

From  this  consideration  of  the  supposed  conflict 
between  democracy  and  the  law  of  heredity  the 
transition  is  easy  to  my  last  topic;  namely,  the 
effect  of  democratic  institutions  on  the  production 
of  ladies  and  gentlemen.  There  can  be  no  question 
that  a  general  amelioration  of  manners  is  brought 
about  in  a  democracy  by  public  schools,  democratic 
churches,  public  conveyances  without  distinction 
of  class,  universal  suffrage,  town-meetings,  and  all 
the  multifarious  associations  in  which  democratic 
society  delights;  but  this  general  amelioration 
might  exist,  and  yet  the  highest  types  of  manners 
might  fail.  Do  these  fail?  On  this  important 
point  American  experience  is  already  interesting, 
and  I  think  conclusive.  Forty  years  ago  Emerson 
said  it  was  a  chief  felicity  of  our  country  that  it 
excelled  in  women.  It  excels  more  and  more. 
Who  has  not  seen  in  public  and  in  private  life 
American  women  unsurpassable  in  grace  and  gra- 
ciousness,  in  serenity  and  dignity,  in  effluent  glad 
ness  and  abounding  courtesy?  Now,  the  lady  is 
the  consummate  fruit  of  human  society  at  its  best. 
In  all  the  higher  walks  of  American  life  there  are 
men  whose  bearing  and  aspect  at  once  distinguish 
them  as  gentlemen.  They  have  personal  force, 
magnanimity,  moderation,  and  refinement;  they 
are  quick  to  see  and  to  sympathize ;  they  are  pure, 
brave,  and  firm.  These  are  also  the  qualities  that 
command  success ;  and  herein  lies  the  only  natural 
connection  between  the  possession  of  property  and 
nobility  of  character.  In  a  mobile  or  free  society 
the  excellent  or  noble  man  is  likely  to  win  ease  and 

97 


The  Working  of  tbe  American  Democracy 

independence;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  under 
any  form  of  government  the  man  of  many  posses 
sions  is  necessarily  excellent.  On  the  evidence  of 
my  reading  and  of  my  personal  observation  at 
home  and  abroad,  I  fully  believe  that  there  is  a 
larger  proportion  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  in  the 
United  States  than  in  any  other  country.  This 
proposition  is,  I  think,  true  with  the  highest  defini 
tion  of  the  term  "  lady  "  or  "  gentleman ; "  but  it  is 
also  true,  if  ladies  and  gentlemen  are  only  persons 
who  are  clean  and  well-dressed,  who  speak  gently 
and  eat  with  their  forks.  It  is  unnecessary,  how 
ever,  to  claim  any  superiority  for  democracy  in 
this  respect;  enough  that  the  highest  types  of 
manners  in  men  and  women  are  produced  abun 
dantly  on  democratic  soil. 

It  would  appear  then  from  American  experience 
that  neither  generations  of  privileged  ancestors, 
nor  large  inherited  possessions,  are  necessary  to 
the  making  of  a  lady  or  a  gentleman.  What  is 
necessary  ?  In  the  first  place,  natural  gifts.  The 
gentleman  is  born  in  a  democracy,  no  less  than  in  a 
monarchy.  In  other  words,  he  is  a  person  of  fine 
bodily  and  spiritual  qualities,  mostly  innate.  Sec 
ondly,  he  must  have,  through  elementary  educa 
tion,  early  access  to  books,  and  therefore  to  great 
thoughts  and  high  examples.  Thirdly,  he  must  be 
early  brought  into  contact  with  some  refined  and 
noble  person  —  father,  mother,  teacher,  pastor,  em 
ployer,  or  friend.  These  are  the  only  necessary 
conditions  in  peaceful  times  and  in  law-abiding 
communities  like  ours.  Accordingly,  such  facts  as 

98 


Tbe  Working  of  the  American  Democracy 

the  following  are  common  in  the  United  States: 
One  of  the  numerous  children  of  a  small  farmer 
manages  to  fit  himself  for  college,  works  his  way 
through  college,  becomes  a  lawyer,  at  forty  is  a 
much-trusted  man  in  one  of  the  chief  cities  of  the 
Union,  and  is  distinguished  for  the  courtesy  and 
dignity  of  his  bearing  and  speech.  The  son  of  a 
country  blacksmith  is  taught  and  helped  to  a  small 
college  by  his  minister ;  he  himself  becomes  a  min 
ister,  has  a  long  fight  with  poverty  and  ill-health, 
but  at  forty-five  holds  as  high  a  place  as  his  pro 
fession  affords,  and  every  line  in  his  face  and  every 
tone  in  his  voice  betoken  the  gentleman.  The  sons 
and  daughters  of  a  successful  shopkeeper  take  the 
highest  places  in  the  most  cultivated  society  of 
their  native  place,  and  well  deserve  the  preemin 
ence  accorded  to  them.  The  daughter  of  a  man  of 
very  imperfect  education,  who  began  life  with 
nothing  and  became  a  rich  merchant,  is  singularly 
beautiful  from  youth  to  age,  and  possesses  to  the 
highest  degree  the  charm  of  dignified  and  gracious 
manners.  A  young  girl,  not  long  out  of  school, 
the  child  of  respectable  but  obscure  parents,  mar 
ries  a  public  man,  and  in  conspicuous  station  bears 
herself  with  a  grace,  discretion,  and  nobleness 
which  she  could  not  have  exceeded  had  her  blood 
been  royal  for  seven  generations.  Striking  cases 
of  this  kind  will  occur  to  every  person  in  this  as 
sembly.  They  are  every-day  phenomena  in  Amer 
ican  society.  What  conclusion  do  they  establish  ? 
They  prove  that  the  social  mobility  of  a  democracy, 
which  permits  the  excellent  and  well-endowed  of 

99 


The  Working  of  the  American  Democracy 

either  sex  to  rise  and  to  seek  out  each  other,  and 
which  gives  every  advantageous  variation  or  sport 
in  a  family  stock  free  opportunity  to  develop,  is 
immeasurably  more  beneficial  to  a  nation  than  any 
selective  in-breeding,  founded  on  class  distinctions, 
which  has  ever  been  devised.  Since  democracy 
has  every  advantage  for  producing  in  due  season 
and  proportion  the  best  human  types,  it  is  reason 
able  to  expect  that  science  and  literature,  music 
and  art,  and  all  the  finer  graces  of  society  will  de 
velop  and  thrive  in  America,  as  soon  as  the  more 
urgent  tasks  of  subduing  a  wilderness  and  organ 
izing  society  upon  an  untried  plan  are  fairly 
accomplished. 

Such  are  some  of  the  reasons  drawn  from  expe 
rience  for  believing  that  our  ship  of  state  is  stout 
and  sound ;  but  she  sails  — 

.  .  .  the  sea 
Of  storm-engendering  liberty  — 

the  happiness  of  the  greatest  number  her  destined 
haven.  Her  safety  requires  incessant  watchfulness 
and  readiness.  Without  trusty  eyes  on  the  look 
out,  and  a  prompt  hand  at  the  wheel,  the  stoutest 
ship  may  be  dismantled  by  a  passing  squall.  It  is 
only  intelligence  and  discipline  which  carry  the 
ship  to  its  port. 


100 


THE  FORGOTTEN  MILLIONS 

A  STUDY  OF  THE  COMMON  AMERICAN  MODE  OF  LIFE 
PUBLISHED  IN  THE  "CENTURY  MAGAZINE,"  AUGUST,  1890 


THE  FORGOTTEN  MILLIONS 


IT  is  the  fashion  to  discuss  social  questions, 
and  to  bring  to  the  discussion  many  prepos 
sessions  and  not  a  little  warmth  of  imagination. 
The  anarchist,  socialist,  and  ^nationalist,  each  for 
his  own  reasons,  have  all  an  interest  in  magnify 
ing  and  proclaiming  every  wrong,  evil,  and  danger 
which  can  possibly  be  attributed  to  industrial  con 
ditions.  In  every  important  strike  the  strikers 
endeavor  to  enlist  public  sympathy  by  giving  vivid 
descriptions  of  the  injuries  against  which  they 
protest  by  quitting  work.  Newspapers  and  maga 
zines  find  it  profitable  to  print  minute  accounts 
of  the  cruelest  industrial  practices,  the  most  re 
volting  human  habitations,  and  the  most  depraved 
modes  of  life  which  can  anywhere  be  discovered 
—  in  miners'  camps,  factory  villages,  or  city  slums. 
The  evils  described  are  real,  though  perhaps  exag 
gerated  ;  and  the  average  reader,  whose  sympathy 
is  moved  day  after  day  by  some  new  tale  of  in 
justice  and  distress,  gradually  loses  all  sense  of  the 
proportion  of  good  to  evil  in  the  social  organism. 

103 


Tbe  Forgotten  Millions 

He  does  not  observe  that,  whereas  almost  all  the 
evils  portrayed  are  developed  in  unnatural  ag 
glomerations  of  population,  three  quarters  of  the 
American  people  do  not  live  in  dense  settlements, 
but  are  scattered  over  great  areas,  only  one  quarter 
of  the  population  living  within  groups  so  large  as 
four  thousand  persons.  It  has  not  been  brought 
home  to  him  that  even  in  such  a  hideous  mass 
of  misery  as  East  London  sixty-two  per  cent,  of 
the  population  live  in  comfort  and  with  an  up 
ward  tendency.  He  tends  to  forget  the  great 
comfortable,  contented  mass  of  the  people  in  his 
eager  sympathy  with  some  small  fraction  which 
is  miserable  and  embittered;  and  little  by  little 
he  comes  to  accept  the  extreme  view  that  the 
existing  social  order  is  all  wrong,  although  he 
knows  perfectly  well  that  the  great  majority  of 
people,  even  in  the  worst  American  towns  and 
cities,  live  comfortably  and  hopefully,  and  with  as 
much  contentment  and  gladness  as  can  be  ex 
pected  in  people  of  their  rather  joyless  lineage. 

In  this  fortunate  land  of  ours  the  antidote  for 
this  empoisoned  state  of  mind  is  the  careful  study 
of  communities  which  illustrate  the  commonest 
social  conditions  and  the  commonest  modes  of  Me. 
By  observing  with  accuracy  the  commonest  social 
conditions  of  to-day,  we  also  qualify  ourselves  as 
well  as  possible  for  imagining  the  probable  social 
conditions  of  to-morrow;  for  it  is  the  common, 
not  the  exceptional,  conditions  of  the  present 
which  predict  and  prepare  the  conditions  of  the 
future.  At  the  risk  of  dwelling  upon  elementary 

104 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

principles  in  popular  government,  and  of  describ 
ing  as  unknown  things  familiar  to  many  country- 
bred  Americans,  I  therefore  purpose  to  delineate 
with  some  minuteness  the  mode  of  government, 
mode  of  life,  and  general  social  condition  of  the 
people  who  make  up  the  sparsely  settled  town 
of  Mount  Desert,  situated  on  the  island  of  that 
name  which  lies  on  the  east  side  of  the  wide  Pe- 
nobscot  Bay.  I  select  this  remote  and  poor  town 
simply  because  I  am  well  acquainted  with  the 
habits  and  conditions  of  its  people;  there  are 
doubtless  thousands  of  towns  which  would  an 
swer  my  general  purpose  just  as  well. 

The  island  of  Mount  Desert  is  divided  into 
three  townships.  The  northeastern  portion  is  the 
town  of  Eden ;  the  southwestern  is  Tremont ;  and 
the  intermediate  third  is  the  town  of  Mount  Des 
ert,  incorporated  in  1789.  The  town  lies  upon 
the  sea  at  both  ends  and  is  irregular  in  shape; 
but  its  major  axis,  which  runs  about  N.  W.  by  W. 
and  S.  E.  by  E.,  is  12  miles  long,  and  its  width 
perpendicular  to  this  axis  varies  from  3J  to  5  miles. 
Its  area  is  therefore  about  fifty  square  miles,  the 
greater  part  of  this  area  being  occupied  by  salt 
water  inlets,  fresh-water  ponds,  and  rocky  hills. 
The  population,  which  in  1880  numbered  1017, 
probably  numbered  about  1400  in  1889,  the  polls 
having  increased  in  that  interval  from  243  to  337. 
There  is  but  one  village  proper  in  the  town, 
namely,  Somesville,  at  the  head  of  Somes  Sound ; 
though  there  are  several  other  small  groups  of 
houses,  as  at  Northeast  Harbor,  Seal  Harbor,  and 

105 


Tbe  Forgotten  Millions 

Pretty  Marsh.  In  general  the  population  is  scat 
tered  along  the  shores  of  the  sea  and  the  inlets. 
The  number  of  houses  in  the  town  in  the  summer 
of  1889  was  about  280,  of  which  about  one  tenth 
were  for  summer  use  only.  The  average  number 
of  persons  to  a  house  is  therefore  between  five 
and  six.  The  surnames  which  are  common  in 
the  town  are  chiefly  English  (Wall,  Davis,  Grover, 
Clement,  Dodge,  Lynam,  Bracy,  Savage,  Kimball, 
Smallidge,  Jordan,  Gilpatrick,  Roberts,  Manchester, 
Atherton,  Richardson,  Somes,  Wasgatt,  Smith, 
Freeman,  Bartlett,  and  Carter) ;  but  a  few,  such  as 
Murphy,  Callahan,  and  Fenelly,  indicate  an  Irish 
descent,  near  or  remote.  The  government  is  by 
town-meeting,  —  an  unqualified  democracy,  —  and 
the  officers  annually  elected  are  three  selectmen, 
who  also  serve  as  assessors  and  overseers  of  the 
poor,  a  treasurer,  a  town  clerk,  a  commissioner  of 
roads  (not  chosen  in  1890),  and  a  superintendent 
of  schools.  Most  of  these  officials  are  paid  by 
the  day,  and  their  total  cost  to  the  town  is  de 
cidedly  modest  ($400  to  $500  a  year).  More  than 
half  the  polls  usually  attend  town-meetings,  and 
take  part  in  State  and  National  elections.  A  fair 
number  at  the  March  town-meeting  is  175;  but 
at  the  Presidential  election  in  1888,  225  men  voted, 
140  for  Harrison  and  85  for  Cleveland.  The  mo 
tive  of  many  of  the  voters  who  give  a  day  to 
the  annual  town-meeting  is  to  keep  down  the  tax- 
levy,  and  to  resist  appropriations  which  benefit 
part  of  the  town  rather  than  the  whole.  Since 

1 06 


Tbe  Forgotten  Millions 

each  voter  has  the  keenest  appreciation  of  the 
fact  that  he  is  to  pay  his  share  of  every  appropria 
tion,  the  tendency  of  the  town-meeting  is  rather 
to  niggardliness  than  to  extravagance;  yet  new 
appropriations,  or  increases  of  appropriations, 
which  can  be  shown  to  be  for  the  common  inter 
est,  have  a  fair  chance  of  success. 

In  striking  contrast  to  the  common  relation  in 
cities  and  large  towns  between  the  number  of  tax 
payers  and  the  number  of  voters  is  the  relation  be 
tween  these  two  numbers  in  Mount  Desert.  The 
taxpayers  in  Mount  Desert  are  much  more  numer 
ous  than  the  polls,  because  many  women,  children, 
and  non-residents  are  taxed.  Thus  in  1889  the  tax 
payers  numbered  578,  of  whom  176  were  non 
residents;  but  these  non-resident  taxpayers  are 
mostly  people  of  the  same  county  (Hancock),  who 
formerly  lived  in  the  town,  or  have  bought  land 
there  on  speculation.  The  number  of  persons  from 
without  the  State  who  had  built  houses  in  the 
town  for  summer  occupation  was  only  sixteen 
down  to  the  summer  of  1889. 

The  largest  tax  paid  in  the  town  for  that  year 
was  $152 ;  and  the  rate  being  $33  on  $1000,  this 
largest  tax  implied  a  valuation  of  $4606.06  for  the 
estate  which  was  assessed  highest.  The  incidence 
of  the  whole  tax-levy,  as  shown  in  the  following 
table,  is  interesting  because  it  exhibits  approxi 
mately  the  distribution  of  property  among  the 
townspeople.  There  are  no  rich  persons  in  the 
town ;  very  few  who  have  not  acquired  some  prop- 

107 


The  Forgotten  Millions 


erty;  and  fewer  still  who  are  not  in  condition  to 
bear  their  share  of  the  public  burdens. 


263  persons,  or  estates,  paid  each  a  tax  between 

105 

102 

47 

29 

9 

6 

5 

3 

3 

2 


£0  and  $5 
5  "  10 


10 
20 
30 
40 
50 
60 
70 
80 
100 


20 
30 
40 
50 
60 
70 
80 
90 
110 


1  person,  or  estate,  paid  between  $90  and  $100 ;  one  paid 
$127 ;  one  $150  ;  and  one  $152. 

The  principles  on  which  the  taxes  are  levied  are 
highly  instructive — this  obscure,  poor,  and  sparsely 
settled  town  having  long  practised  a  method  of 
taxation  far  more  conservative  than  the  methods 
which  prevail  in  the  rich  and  populous  New  Eng 
land  communities.  In  the  first  place,  the  valuation 
is  low  and  the  rate  high,  the  valuation  remaining 
very  constant  and  the  rate  being  determined  each 
year  by  the  amount  which  the  town  votes  to  raise. 
A  low  valuation  tends  to  keep  the  State  and  county 
taxes  low,  although  the  returns  of  town  valuations 
are  subject  to  correction  by  a  State  Valuation  Com 
mission.  Secondly,  the  assessors  pay  no  attention 
to  speculative  or  fancy  values.  Thus,  although  a 
village  lot  may  have  been  actually  bought  at  the 
rate  of  $500  an  acre,  it  continues  to  be  valued 
for  purposes  of  taxation  at,  say,  $30  an  acre,  as  if 
it  were  tillage  land.  If  a  cottage  which  cost  $2000 
is  let  for  the  summer  for  $300,  it  nevertheless  con- 

108 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

tinues  to  be  valued  at,  say,  $700.  Thirdly,  no  at 
tempt  is  made  to  tax  things  invisible  and  undis- 
coverable,  although  the  laws  of  Maine  prescribe  the 
taxation  of  bonds,  money  at  interest,  and  other 
forms  of  personal  property  which  are  easily  con 
cealed.  The  items  on  the  assessors'  books  consist 
exclusively  of  things  which  are  under  the  public 
eye. 

The  low  valuation  for  purposes  of  taxation  is,  on 
the  whole,  more  acceptable  to  each  taxpayer  than 
an  accurate  or  supposed  market-price  valuation 
would  be ;  and  it  is  a  more  stable  basis  for  the  an 
nual  assessment  of  the  necessary  taxes.  The  annual 
valuations,  whether  of  real  estate  or  of  personal 
property,  are  never  appealed  to  as  indicating  mar 
ket-price  or  actual  value.  The  items  on  the  asses 
sors'  books  (which  are  open  to  inspection  by  any 
citizen)  are  divisible  into  real  estate,  personal  prop 
erty,  and  polls — land  and  buildings  constituting 
the  real  estate ;  cattle,  horses,  mules,  sheep,  swine, 
pleasure  carriages,  musical  instruments,  household 
furniture  above  $200  in  value,  logs,  timber,  boards, 
vessels,  and  stock  in  trade  or  employed  in  arts, 
constituting  the  personal  property.  All  these 
things  are  visible  to  every  neighbor.  No  inquisi 
torial  methods  are  necessary,  and  no  returns  of 
property  under  oath  are  asked  for.  Stock  in  trade 
is  roughly  estimated  at  low  figures,  the  contents  of 
a  well-filled  country  variety  store,  for  example, 
being  valued  at  $500  year  after  year.  For  pur 
poses  of  taxation  the  land  is  divided  into  mowing 
or  tillage,  pasture  and  unimproved  land.  From 

109 


Tbe  Forgotten  Millions 

$10  to  $30  per  acre  is  the  common  valuation  for 
tillage  land ;  $4  per  acre  is  the  commonest  valua 
tion  of  pasture  land ;  and  for  unimproved  land  the 
range  of  valuation  is  from  $4  to  $20  per  acre, 
according  to  its  capacities.  These  valuations  are 
still  persisted  in,  although  the  access  of  summer 
visitors  since  1880  has  given  a  high  speculative 
value  to  some  shore  and  village  lots. 

This  method  of  taxation  is  perfectly  natural 
under  the  conditions  which  have  existed  in  the 
town  since  its  first  settlement  in  1760.  The  things 
taxed  have  made  up  the  entire  property  of  the 
people  for  generations,  and  for  practical  purposes 
they  are  still  the  only  forms  of  property  and  capi 
tal  in  the  town.  The  interests  of  the  permanent 
residents  explain  the  wise  neglect  of  the  assessors 
to  take  account  of  the  altered  values  of  shore  and 
village  house-sites.  The  greater  part  of  the  land 
which  has  acquired,  since  1880,  a  relatively  high 
value,  because  of  the  summer  immigration,  belongs 
to  permanent  residents,  who  hold  it  tenaciously, 
and  mean  to  live  on  a  part  of  it.  If  this  land  were 
assessed  for  taxation  at  the  prices  its  owners  ask 
for  it,  the  present  owners  could  not  long  continue 
to  hold  it. 

The  total  valuation  has  of  course  risen  consider 
ably  since  the  town  began  to  be  a  summer  resort, 
but  is  still  very  moderate.  Indeed,  it  would  no 
more  than  make  a  decent  little  property  for  a  re 
spectable  merchant  in  New  York  or  Chicago.  The 
increase  is  mainly  due  to  new  buildings,  $40,000  of 
this  increase  being  assessed  to  permanent  residents, 

no 


Tbe  Forgotten  Millions 

and  $50,000  to  summer  residents.    The  following 
table  shows  the  steps  of  the  increase : 

VALUATION  OF  THE  TOWN  OF  MOUNT  DESERT. 

1880        1881        1882         1883         1884 

Real  estate  of  resi 
dents $62,531  $60,999  \  $64,470  $68,203 

Personal  estate  of  resi-  £  $85,393 

dents 24,228      20,755  >  24,189      24,610 

Real  and  personal 
estate  of  non-resi 
dents* 8,553  11,413  17,698  19,111  20,911 

Total $95,312    $93,167  $103,091  $107,770  $113,724 

1885        1886        1887         1888         1889 

Real  estate  of  resi 
dents  $72,326  $73,884  $89,157  $98,090  $104,453 

Personal  estate  of  resi 
dents 24,479  24,399  24,809  28,976  30,793 

Real  and  personal 
estate  of  non-resi 
dents* 23,178  24,526  39,575  50,270  58,273 


Total $119,983  $122,809  $153,541  $177,336  $193,519 

It  is  noticeable  that  the  personal  property  as 
sessed  to  permanent  residents  did  not  increase  at  all 
between  1880  and  1887.  The  amount  of  vessel 
property  diminished  in  this  interval,  and  until  1887 
the  increase  in  other  forms  of  personal  proper^ 
did  not  more  than  make  good  that  loss. 

A  rate  of  $33  on  every  $1000  of  the  totr 
tion  yields  in  most  years,  when  adder' 
taxes  ($3  a  poll),  the  money  needed  4 
nual  appropriations.    What  are  •  i]>proi>r 

l  The  personal  property  assessed  to  r 
in  amount. 

Ill' 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

tions? — or,  in  other  words,  for  what  do  the  voters 
spend  the  money  which  they  have  themselves  con 
tributed  ?  The  following  table  answers  this  ques- 
tipn  for  the  years  1880,  1885,  1889,  and  1890,  the 
y$ar  1880  being  before  the  invasion  of  the  town  by 
summer  visitors,  and  the  year  1889  being  the  year 
of  largest  appropriations : 

APPROPRIATIONS  MADE  AT  THE  MARCH 
TOWN-MEETING. 

For                     1880  1885 

State  and  county  taxes .  $1,055.60   $833.48 

Common  schools 733.60    813.60 

Roads  and  bridges 575.00    1,400.00 

Town  charges 600.00   400.00 

Poor 1,200.00    1,100.00 

Bridge  at  Little  Harbor  Repairing    Beach   Hill 

Brook 150.00      Road 100.00 

Bridge  at  Somesville . . .  100.00 
Land  damage  on  road 

at  Pretty  Marsh 30.00 

Total $4,314.20      Total $4,777.08 

For  1889  1890 

State  and  county  taxes .      $789.98    $800.00 

Common  schools 813.60   813.60 

Roads  and  bridges 2,500.00    2,000.00 

Town  charges 1,000.00    800.00 

Poor 1,200.00    1,000.00 

Road  at  Northeast  Har-  Bridge      at     Northeast 

bor 750.00       Harbor 60.00 

.    mage  on  a  horse  ....  25.00  Repairing  two  hills  on 

Hal  day  expenses.  15.00      Southwest       Harbor 

schooU 200.00      road 300.00 

jd'       Free  high  school 150.00 

To  buy  school  books. . .  800.00 

. .  $7,293.58       Total $6,723.60 

et  »l)pr  '  ^>n  for  a  high  school  was  made  in  1886. 

112 


Tbe  Forgotten  Millions 

State  and  county  taxes  used  to  absorb  nearly  a 
quarter  of  the  whole  tax  levy,  but  of  late  years 
have  required  less  than  one  eighth. 

For  common  schools  the  town  appropriates  just 
what  the  Maine  statute  requires,  namely,  eighty 
cents  for  each  inhabitant  according  to  the  last 
census;  but  this  small  appropriation  is  supple 
mented  by  a  grant  from  the  State  of  nearly  as 
much  more,  which  is  derived  from  the  school  fund, 
the  bank  tax,  and  a  tax  of  one  mill  on  every  dollar 
of  valuation  throughout  the  State.  In  addition  to 
the  town  tax  for  schools,  a  separate  district  tax  is 
occasionally  levied  for  school  buildings.  For  the 
year  ending  April  1,  1889,  the  number  of  scholars 
was  406,  and  the  State  grant  of  $712.11  added  to 
the  town  appropriation  of  $813.60  made  the  whole 
sum  available  for  common  schools  $1525.71,  or  $3.76 
for  each  scholar  for  the  year.  Since  1886  the  town 
has  also  appropriated  annually  from  $100  to  $200 
a  year  for  a  high  school,  the  State  giving  as  much 
as  the  town  raises,  but  not  exceeding  $250. 

Roads  and  bridges  have  been  the  largest  item 
on  the  list  of  appropriations  since  1884,  and  have 
of  late  absorbed  from  one  third  to  three  sevenths 
of  the  entire  tax-levy.  This  expenditure  has  un 
doubtedly  been  judicious ;  for  driving  is  one  of  the 
principal  pastimes  of  the  summer  visitors,  and 
gives  profitable  employment  at  that  season  to  the 
horses  and  vehicles  of  the  permanent  residents. 
Moreover,  the  roads  and  bridges,  having  necessarily 
been  constructed  originally  in  the  cheapest  possible 
manner  as  regards  both  laying  out  and  surface, 

113 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

were  costly  in  wear  and  tear  of  animals  and  ve 
hicles,  and  costly  also  in  annual  repairs.  Indeed, 
within  the  memory  of  men  of  middle  age,  commu 
nication  between  the  different  settlements  of  the 
town  was  mainly  by  water,  and  the  "  stores  "  were 
situated  near  sheltered  landings,  rather  than  at 
cross-roads  or  corners.  Of  late  years  a  fair  pro 
portion  of  the  annual  outlay  on  the  roads  has  been 
devoted  to  permanent  improvements,  like  the  con 
struction  of  adequate  culverts  and  gutters  and  the 
reduction  of  the  steepest  grades. 

The  appropriation  for  the  care  of  the  town  poor 
has  been  the  next  largest  appropriation  since  1884 ; 
but  before  that  year  it  was  usually  the  largest  of 
the  appropriations,  as,  for  instance,  in  1880,  when 
it  was  more  than  one  fourth  of  the  whole  tax-levy. 
The  theory  on  which  the  voters  act  in  making  this 
appropriation  is  that  the  town  is  to  take  care  of 
the  incapable,  crippled,  and  aged  who  are  without 
means  of  support.  No  one  in  the  town  is  to  be 
hungry  or  cold.  If  some  unusual  misfortune  over 
takes  a  family  ordinarily  self-supporting, —  like 
diphtheria  among  the  children,  or  the  prolonged 
sickness  of  the  breadwinner, —  that  family  is  to  be 
helped  temporarily  by  the  town.  In  short,  every 
body  who  has  a  domicile  in  the  town  is  assured  of 
a  bare  livelihood  at  all  times,  and  of  aid  under 
special  misfortunes.  The  idea  that  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  town  to  take  care  of  its  poor  is  firmly  planted 
in  the  mind  of  every  inhabitant.  The  town  offi 
cers  will  try  to  prevent  an  hereditary  or  constitu 
tional  pauper  from  acquiring  a  domicile  in  the 

114 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

town ;  they  will  try  to  establish  elsewhere  shiftless 
families  that  are  apt  to  need  aid ;  but  they  will  re 
lieve  every  case  of  destitution  which  fairly  belongs 
in  the  town.  There  is  no  poor-house ;  so  that  per 
sons  who  cannot  support  themselves  are  boarded 
and  lodged  in  private  houses  at  the  expense  of  the 
town.  Besides  this  idea  of  the  town's  duty  toward 
the  unfortunate  and  incapable  there  is  planted  in  the 
breast  of  the  rural  New  Englander  another  invalu 
able  sentiment,  namely,  that  "to  come  on  the 
town  "  is  the  greatest  of  misfortunes  and  humilia 
tions.  Few  aged  people  "come  on  the  town." 
When  a  man  and  wife  who  have  brought  up  a 
family  get  past  work,  they  not  infrequently,  with 
the  consent  of  the  whole  family,  give  a  deed  of 
their  land  and  buildings  to  one  of  the  married  sons 
or  daughters  in  consideration  of  an  assured  main 
tenance  during  their  lives.  This  arrangement  is 
generally  regarded  as  one  creditable  to  all  parties, 
being  in  fact  a  natural  substitute  for  an  annuity. 

The  appropriation  for  town  charges  covers  the 
town  officers'  bills  by  the  day,  the  discount  on  taxes, 
abatements,  stationery,  and  incidentals.  On  the 
whole,  the  town  is  well  served  at  small  charge.  In 
the  appropriations  for  1890  a  new  item  appears, 
namely,  "  to  buy  school-books."  The  city  practice 
of  providing  free  text-books  as  well  as  free  tuition 
for  all  children  had  just  penetrated  to  this  island 
town.1 

!It  is  interesting  to  compare  with  those  of  a  comparatively  rich 
the  public  expenditures  of  a  poor  Massachusetts  town  like  Concord. 
Maine  town  like  Mount  Desert  For  1888-89  the  expenditures  of 


Tbe  Forgotten  Millions 

An  interesting  element  in  the  well-being  of  this 
rural  population  is  their  school  system.  It  has  al 
ready  appeared  that  the  town  appropriations  for 
schools  are  very  small,  and  that  even  after  the  ad 
dition  of  the  liberal  aid  given  by  the  State  the 
total  sum  available  per  child  is  not  more  than  one- 
fifth  of  the  sum  ordinarily  available  in  New  Eng 
land  cities  and  towns  in  which  the  population  is 
large  and  dense.  The  average  annual  expenditure 
per  child  in  Massachusetts  since  1883  has  been 
about  $20.  What  do  the  people  of  Mount  Desert, 
who  by  annual  vote  make  the  minimum  provision 
for  schools,  get  for  their  money  ?  The  number  of 
schoolhouses  in  the  town  was  ten  in  1889,  and,  on 
the  average,  school  is  kept  in  every  schoolhouse  for 
two  terms  of  about  nine  weeks  each  in  a  year.  The 
summer  schools  are  usually  kept  by  women,  who 

Concord,  excluding  payments  on  police,  sewers,  sidewalks,  the  fire 
a  new  high-school  building  and  department,  the  public  library, 
payments  of  principal  and  inter-  the  cemetery,  and  public  grounds, 
est  on  the  town  debt,  amounted  none  of  which  luxuries  are  pro- 
to  $54,135.48.  Only  77  per  cent,  vided  at  Mount  Desert.  The  ex- 
of  these  expenditures  were  for  penditures  in  the  two  towns  in 
the  same  objects  as  the  expend!-  1888-89  for  the  same  objects  com- 
tures  at  Mount  Desert.  The  other  pare  as  follows : 
23  per  cent,  were  for  street-lamps, 

Per  cent. 

Concord       Per  cent,  of    Mt.  Desert     of  total 

expend!-      total  expen-   appropria-    appropri- 

tures.  ditures.  tions.  ations. 

State  and  county  tax $6,603.59  12.2  $789.98  10.8 

Schools,      excluding     new 

buildings 14,751.59  27.2  1,013.60  13.9 

Roads  and  bridges 10,881.29  20.0  3,275.00  44.9 

General  expenses 5,023.06  9.8  1,000.00  13.7 

Poor 4,209.14  7.8  1,200.00  16.4 


$41,468.67  77.  $7,278.58 

116 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

are  paid  from  $4.50  to  $5  a  week  besides  their  board 
and  lodging ;  the  winter  schools,  by  men,  who  are 
paid  about  $40  a  month,  besides  their  board  and 
lodging.  In  addition,  the  so-called  high  school  is 
kept  three  terms  of  ten  weeks  each,  but  in  three 
different  districts.  Eighteen  weeks  in  the  year  are 
all  the  schooling  a  Mount  Desert  boy  can  get  until 
he  is  far  enough  advanced  to  go  to  the  high  school 
for  ten  weeks  more.  Moreover,  the  two  terms  in 
each  year  are  far  apart,  so  that  the  pupil  forgets  a 
good  deal  between  terms.  The  teachers  are  in 
many  cases  untrained  for  their  work,  or  very  im 
perfectly  trained.  In  spite  of  their  limited  oppor 
tunities,  however,  all  the  children  of  the  town  learn 
to  read,  write,  and  cipher  well  enough  for  practical 
purposes,  and  better  than  some  children  in  cities 
and  large  towns  who  have  twice  the  amount  of 

The  striking  differences  are  on  centage  of  the  total  valuation  of 

schools,  roads  and  bridges,  and  the  town  appropriated  to  schools 

poor.    The  percentage  expendi-  in  Concord  in  1888-89  was  .45  of 

tures  on  poor  and  on  roads  and  one  per  cent. ;  the  percentage  of 

bridges  at  Mount  Desert  are  more  the  Mount  Desert  valuation  ap- 

than  double  the  percentage  ex-  propriated  to  schools  in  the  same 

penditures  for  the  corresponding  year  was  .52  of  one   per  cent, 

objects  at  Concord.   On  the  other  Concord  has  only  two  and  a  half 

hand,  the  percentage  expenditure  times  the  population  of  Mount 

on  schools  is  very  little  larger  in  Desert,  but  nearly  twenty  times 

Concord  than  in  Mount  Desert ;  the  valuation.      It    is    possible, 

for  the  State  aid  given  to  Mount  however,  that  the  Concord  valua- 

Desert,  which  is  not  included  in  tion  represents  more  accurately 

the  foregoing  table,  nearly  doubles  than  that  of  Mount  Desert  the 

the  appropriation  made  at  town-  actual   property  of   the  inhabi- 

meeting;  whereas  the  aid  which  tants.    Concord  has  not  twice  as 

Concord  receives  from  Massachu-  many  school-children  as  Mount 

setts  is  insignificant,  but  is  in-  Desert,  but  spends    on    schools 

eluded  in  the  table.     The  per-  seven  times  the  money. 

** 


Tbe  Forgotten  Millions 

schooling, —  and  that  under  skilful  teachers, —  but 
pass  the  rest  of  their  time  under  unfavorable  con 
ditions  in  crowded  tenements  and  streets.  The 
favorable  result  depends,  first,  on  the  keenness  of 
the  children's  desire  to  learn ;  and,  secondly,  on  the 
general  home  training.  In  an  ordinary  Mount 
Desert  household,  men,  women,  and  children  all 
work  with  their  hands  for  the  common  support  and 
satisfaction.  The  children  help  the  elders  in  the 
common  family  interest  as  soon  as  they  can  rock  a 
cradle,  drive  a  cow,  sweep  a  floor,  or  bring  from 
the  post-office  the  precious  weekly  newspaper.  Yet 
the  children's  labor,  unlike  factory  work,  is  whole 
some  for  body  and  mind.  They  thus  acquire  at 
home,  in  the  best  way,  habits  of  application  and 
industry  which  stand  them  in  good  stead  during 
the  short  weeks  of  their  scanty  school  terms. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  town  was  but  ill 
supplied  with  churches  before  the  advent  of  the 
summer  visitor.  Before  1881  there  was  but  one 
church  in  the  town,  and  that  one  did  not  always 
have  a  minister,  and  was  practically  inaccessible  from 
large  portions  of  the  town.  The  native  population, 
as  a  rule,  felt  no  need  of  rites  or  sacraments ;  they 
were  seldom  christened  or  baptized,  and  were  gen 
erally  married  by  a  justice,  and  buried  by  some 
minister  imported  for  the  occasion.  A  careful  jus 
tice  requires  the  town  clerk's  certificate  of  five  days' 
intention  of  marriage.  It  has  long  been  the  cus 
tom  to  bury  the  dead  near  the  houses  where  they 
had  lived;  so  that  on  almost  every  farm  one  or 
more  small  burial  lots  are  to  be  seen,  inclosed  with 

118 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

a  wooden  fence,  and  containing  a  few  marble  head 
stones,  some  wild 'roses,  and  perhaps  a  mountain- 
ash  or  some  maples.  There  were  but  few  church 
members  in  the  town,  such  as  there  were  being 
Baptists,  Methodists,  or  Congregationalists.  By 
the  zeal  of  summer  residents  and  visitors  who  were 
devoted  to  the  Episcopal  Church,  two  chapels  have 
been  built  in  the  town,  in  which  the  worship  of 
that  church  is  maintained  all  the  year  round ;  and 
last  summer  (1889)  a  small  Union  church  was  also 
finished  by  the  combined  efforts  of  permanent  and 
summer  residents.  It  was,  and  still  is,  the  prac 
tice  of  the  natives  of  the  town  to  secure  a  little 
preaching  by  inviting  a  minister  or  a  theological 
student  who  lives  in  some  neighboring  town  to 
preach  once  every  other  Sunday,  or  once  every 
month,  in  one  of  the  schoolhouses,  and  to  accept  as 
payment  the  proceeds  of  the  collection  taken  up  at 
the  meeting,  a  guarantee  being  sometimes  given 
that  the  collection  should  amount  to  a  specified 
sum.  The  same  minister  could  serve  in  this  way 
four  of  the  scattered  settlements,  provided  he  were 
strong  enough  to  endure  the  inevitable  exposure 
and  fatigue.  One  who  remembers  the  Mount 
Desert  preaching  procured  in  this  fashion  forty 
years  ago  describes  the  regular  discourses  of  his 
youth  as  "  them  worm  sermons " ;  but  allusions  to 
the  worms  which  destroy  this  body,  and  to  the  un 
dying  worm  in  hell,  are  now  heard  but  rarely. 
Singing  by  the  local  choir  adds  to  the  interest  of 
these  religious  meetings,  which  indeed  answer 
pretty  well  the  common  church  purpose  of  bring- 

119 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

ing  people  together  in  search  of  edification,  up 
lifting,  and  friendly  communion.  At  Northeast 
Harbor  the  Union  church,  instead  of  the  bare 
schoolhouse,  is  now  used  in  precisely  this  way,  it 
being  quite  impossible  for  the  few  residents  to  pro 
vide  a  salary  for  a  settled  minister.  Sunday-schools 
are  from  time  to  time  carried  on  in  some  of  the 
schoolhouses  by  the  efforts  of  a  few  public-spirited 
persons,  men  and  women,  who  make  use  of  the 
printed  lessons  and  guides  which  the  various  Prot 
estant  denominations  provide  in  great  abundance. 
Adults  as  well  as  children  attend  these  Sunday- 
schools. 

In  1889  there  were  eleven  general,  or  variety, 
"stores"  in  the  town,  and  nine  trades  were  prac 
tised,  namely,  the  trades  of  the  carpenter,  painter, 
paperhanger,  milliner,  blacksmith,  harness-maker, 
plumber,  mason,  and  undertaker.  These  are,  of 
course,  the  trades  first  needed  in  small  communi 
ties.  A  little  lumber  is  still  sawed;  in  winters 
when  ice  fails  on  the  Hudson  some  ice  is  cut 
for  shipping,  and  cord- wood  is  cut  for  home  use 
and  for  shipping ;  but  the  only  considerable  indus 
try  in  the  town  is  quarrying  and  cutting  granite. 
The  commonest  product  of  the  quarries  is  pav 
ing-stones  ;  but  stones  of  large  size,  for  building 
purposes,  are  also  produced.  The  splitting  out  of 
paving-stones  is  piece-work,  at  which  a  strong 
and  skilful  man  can  earn  good  wages  ($3  to  $5 
a  day);  but  it  is  hard  work,  and  it  cannot  be 
pursued  more  than  six  or  seven  months  out  of 
the  year.  Almost  every  young  man  follows  the 

120 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

sea  for  a  time  in  either  fishing-  or  coasting-ves 
sels;  and  almost  every  householder  does  a  little 
farming — that  is,  he  makes  some  hay,  raises  pease, 
beans,  beets,  carrots,  and  potatoes  for  his  family, 
and  keeps  a  few  hens,  a  pig,  and  one  or  two  cows. 
The  proceeds  of  a  lucky  season  in  a  mackerel- 
catcher  or  "banker"  are  sometimes  sufficient  to 
build  a  house  for  the  young  fisherman,  particu 
larly  if  only  two  or  three  of  the  rooms  are  plas 
tered  at  first.  A  young  man  who  has  laid  up 
money  enough  to  build  a  small  house,  and  furnish 
two  rooms  in  it,  is  in  a  position  to  marry  and  set 
tle  down;  and  a  young  woman  who,  with  the  assist 
ance  of  her  parents,  has  saved  one  or  two  hun 
dred  dollars  by  working  in  summer  hotels  or 
teaching,  is  distinctly  a  desirable  match  —  first, 
because  she  has  proved  her  capacity;  and  sec 
ondly,  because  she  has  capital.  There  is  probably 
not  an  able-bodied  man  in  the  town,  leaving  out 
the  summer  residents,  who  does  not  work  a  great 
deal  with  his  hands.  The  doctor  is  also  a  farmer ; 
and  the  minister  at  Somesville,  when  there  is  one, 
probably  raises  his  own  vegetables,  takes  care  of 
his  horse,  and  saws,  splits,  and  carries  in  his  wood. 
Almost  all  the  men  are  rough  carpenters  and 
painters,  and  they  are  equally  at  home  on  a  boat, 
a  jigger,  or  a  buckboard.  The_  most  substantial 
citizens  work  on  the  roads ;  tend  their  live-stock ; 
milk  the  cows;  drive  buckboards;  cut  ice  and 
wood;  haul  stone,  firewood,  and  lumber;  bring 
sand,  gravel,  and  brick  in  scows;  go  a-fishing  or 
tend  lobster-pots.  Ten  years  ago  many  of  the 

121 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

women  spun  the  wool  of  their  own  sheep  into 
yarn,  besides  making  all  the  family  clothes,  taking 
care  of  the  poultry,  making  butter,  and  doing  all 
the  household  work.  The  girls  work  very  hard  in 
the  summer  boarding-houses  of  the  island  for 
eight  or  ten  weeks,  but  do  not,  like  the  Nova 
Scotia  girls,  seek  domestic  service  far  away  from 
home.  From  the  necessity  of  the  case,  division 
of  labor  is  not  carried  far  in  the  town,  and  most 
of  the  people  learn  to  do  many  things  passably 
rather  than  any  one  thing  perfectly. 

The  diet  of  the  population  is  sufficiently  varied, 
and  is  agreeable  to  them ;  but  it  is  perhaps  some 
what  defective  in  the  elements  needed  to  form 
bone  and  muscle.  This  chemical  defect  may  pos 
sibly  account  for  the  premature  decay  of  the  young 
people's  teeth,  which  is  noticeable  in  many  cases. 
The  staples  of  their  food  are  white  flour,  corn- 
meal,  sugar,  butter,  lard,  stewed  fruit  (apples,  crab- 
apples,  damsons,  bog  and  mountain  cranberries, 
blueberries,  raspberries,  and  prunes),  beans,  salt 
pork,  salt  and  fresh  fish  (cod,  haddock,  mackerel, 
ale  wives,  smelts,  and  frost-fish),  clams,  lobsters, 
fresh  vegetables  and  berries  in  summer,  tea  and 
coffee,  salt  and  spices.  Fresh  meat  is  too  costly 
for  common  use,  except  in  midwinter,  when  large 
pieces  can  be  bought  at  wholesale  prices  and 
kept  frozen.  Moreover,  the  women,  as  a  rule,  do 
not  use  beef  and  mutton  to  advantage,  because 
they  do  not  know  how  to  make  the  savory  stews, 
broths,  and  soups  which  French  and  Canadian 
women  prepare  from  the  cheapest  pieces  of  meat. 

122 


Tbe  Forgotten  Millions 

Instead  of  boiling  or  stewing  a  piece  of  the  round 
of  beef,  for  example,  the  Mount  Desert  cooks  broil 
or  fry  it  in  thin  slices,  the  product  being,  of 
course,  dry,  tough,  and  indigestible.  Eggs  are 
too  useful  for  barter  at  the  "  store "  to  be  eaten 
freely,  and  chickens  must  be  sold  to  extravagant 
summer  residents,  or  to  collectors  of  poultry  for 
city  markets.  The  diet  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Mount  Desert  might  be  greatly  improved  at  very 
smah1  cost  if  they  would  only  adopt  oatmeal  from 
the  Scotch,  pea-soup  from  the  Canadians,  sausage 
from  the  Germans,  and  the  pot-au-feu  from  the 
French.  It  should  be  observed,  however,  that 
their  present  diet  is  satisfactory  to  them.  They 
like  hot  bread  made  in  fifteen  minutes  by  the 
aid  of  chemical  baking-powders ;  they  are  used  to 
cakes,  doughnuts,  pies,  and  sweet  sauces,  and  they 
probably  would  not  like  the  more  nutritious  and 
more  nitrogenous  diet  which  their  summer  visitors 
affect. 

The  cost  of  bringing  up  a  family  of  five  or  six 
children  comfortably  in  the  town  of  Mount  Desert 
does  not  exceed  $250  a  year,  if  the  house,  a  garden- 
patch,  and  a  cow-pasture  be  already  provided  from 
savings  of  the  husband  and  wife  before  marriage, 
and  if  the  family,  as  a  whole,  have  normal  health 
and  strength.  Very  few  heads  of  families  earn 
more  than  that  sum  in  a  year ;  for,  although  a  day's 
wages  in  summer  are  commonly  $1.75,  work  is 
scarce,  the  winter  is  long,  and  few  men  can  get 
more  than  five  months'  employment  at  these  wages 
in  a  year.  The  man  and  boys  of  a  family  can, 

123 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

however,  do  much  for  the  common  support,  even 
when  there  is  no  work  at  wages  to  be  had.  They 
can  catch  and  cure  fish,  dig  clams,  trap  lobsters, 
pick  the  abundant  blueberries  on  the  rocky  hills  in 
August,  and  shoot  ducks  at  the  seasons  of  migra 
tion.  Wild  nature  still  yields  to  the  skilful  seeker 
a  considerable  quantity  of  food  without  price. 
Dwellers  in  a  city  may  wonder  how  it  is  possible 
for  a  family  to  live  so  cheaply,  but  there  is  no 
mystery  about  it.  There  is  no  rent  to  pay;  the 
schools  are  free ;  water  costs  nothing ;  the  garden- 
patch  yields  potatoes  and  other  vegetables,  and  the 
pasture  milk  and  butter ;  two  kerosene  lamps  and 
a  lantern  supply  all  the  artificial  light  needed,  at  a 
cost  not  exceeding  $2  a  year;  the  family  do  all 
their  own  work  without  waste;  there  is  but  one 
fire,  except  on  rare  occasions,  and  that  single  fire  is 
in  a  stove  which  delivers  all  its  heat  into  the  house; 
the  wife  and  daughters  knit  the  family  stockings, 
mittens,  and  mufflers,  mend  all  the  clothes,  and  for 
the  most  part  make  all  their  own.  The  ready-made 
clothing  which  the  men  buy  at  the  stores  is  very 
cheap  ($10  to  $15  a  suit),  being  made  of  cotton 
with  but  a  small  admixture  of  wool.  The  cloth  is 
strong  and  warm,  and  looks  fairly  well  when 
new,  but  soon  fades  and  wears  shabby.  For 
children  the  old  clothes  of  their  elders  are  cut 
down,  the  wear  being  thus  brought  on  new  places. 
The  Hessian  country  girl  wears  proudly  her  grand 
mother's  woolen  petticoats,  and  well  she  may,  for 
they  are  just  as  good  and  handsome  as  they  were 
sixty  years  ago.  A  Scotch  shepherd's  all-wool 

124 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

plaid  withstands  the  wind  and  the  rain  for  a  life 
time.  The  old  Swiss  porter,  who  is  carrying  the 
mounted  traveler's  valise  over  the  Gemmi,  puts  on 
when  the  shower  begins  a  thick  woolen  jacket  of 
a  rich  brown  color,  with  the  remark,  "The  rain 
won't  wet  me,  sir ;  this  coat  has  kept  me  dry  for 
twenty-five  years."  The  American  farmer  and 
laborer  use  no  such  good  materials  as  these,  and 
therefore  they  and  their  children  look  shabby  most 
of  the  time;  but  their  clothes  are  very  cheap  in 
first  cost,  and,  like  the  cotton  clothes  of  the  Chinese, 
they  answer  the  main  purposes  of  all  clothing.  In 
a  city  the  best  clothes  of  the  family  must  be  often 
put  on;  in  the  country  but  seldom.  Shoes  and 
boots  must  be  bought  for  the  whole  household,  but 
these  articles  are  also  very  cheap  in  New  England, 
and  the  coarser  sorts  are  durable  in  proportion  to 
their  price.  For  protection  from  rain  the  Mount 
Desert  man  who  is  obliged  to  be  out-of-doors  in 
bad  weather  uses,  in  sailor-fashion,  not  rubber 
clothing,  but  suits  of  oiled  cotton  cloth,  which  keep 
out  not  only  water  but  wind,  last  long,  and  cost 
little  ($2  to  $3  a  suit).  However  hard  it  may  be  for 
city  people  to  understand  it,  the  fact  remains  that 
$250  a  year  is  a  sum  adequate  to  the  comfortable 
and  wholesome  support  of  a  family  of  seven  or 
eight  persons  in  the  town  of  Mount  Desert,  pro 
vided  that  a  house,  a  garden,  and  a  pasture  are 
secured  to  them. 

The  people  are,  as  a  rule,  well  satisfied  with  their 
surroundings  and  their  mode  of  life.  Why  should 
they  not  be?  They  are  individually  self-support- 

125 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

ing  and  independent;  they  manage  their  town 
affairs,  as  free  citizens  should,  with  frugality  and 
conservatism,  feel  no  external  restraints,  and,  be 
ing  quite  ignorant  of  the  practical  working  of  the 
national  tariff,  are  conscious  of  no  burdens  which 
are  not  self-imposed.  They  are  not  anxious  about 
the  morrow,  for  their  well-being  does  not  depend 
on  any  single  industry,  or  on  the  good  feeling  or 
good  judgment  of  any  one  man  or  set  of  men. 
They  all  feel  sure  of  a  modest  livelihood  while 
health  and  strength  last,  and  the  poorest  know  that 
in  emergencies  they  can  rely  on  help  from  the  com 
mon  purse  or  from  sympathetic  neighbors.  If  the 
father  of  a  family  break  his  leg  just  when  the 
winter  supply  of  wood  should  be  sawed  and  split, 
the  men  and  boys  of  the  neighborhood  hold  a 
"  chopping-bee "  at  the  house,  and  in  a  day  the 
winter's  supply  of  fuel  is  prepared  and  piled  ready 
for  use.  If  the  cow  of  a  poor  family  dies,  the 
friends  club  together  to  provide  another.  Such 
poverty  as  exists  in  the  town  is  the  result  of  disease, 
bad  habits,  or  shiftlessness.  The  persons  supported 
by  the  town  in  1888-89  were  two  orphan  children, 
two  insane  adults,  one  boy  in  the  reform  school, 
and  one  infirm  woman.  If  the  wife  is  lazy,  care 
less,  or  wasteful,  the  family  cannot  thrive.  "  That 
woman  will  throw  more  good  stuff  out  of  the  win 
dow  with  a  spoon  than  her  husband  can  roll  in  at 
the  door  in  a  wheelbarrow,"  said  a  town  official  in 
describing  the  causes  of  the  straitened  condition  of 
a  family  which  sometimes  needed  the  help  of  the 
town.  A  good  proportion  of  the  families  of  the 

126 


Tbe  Forgotten  Millions 

town  are  thrifty,  kindly,  and  intelligent,  and  there 
are  helpfulness  and  self-respect  throughout  their 
households,  and  therefore  comfort  and  content 
ment.  Of  course  there  are  some  blackish  sheep; 
and,  as  in  all  small  communities,  there  are  some 
quarrels  between  neighbors  who  ought  to  be 
friends,  and  some  chronic  misunderstandings  and 
antagonisms  between  kindred  families  which  ought 
to  be  united.  One  must  not  imagine  that  people 
who  live  in  the  country  are  ipso  facto  more  vir 
tuous  and  high-minded  than  people  of  the  same 
stock  who  live  in  the  city.  It  is  really  no  easier 
for  people  of  small  means  than  for  those  of  large 
means  to  avoid  becoming  penurious  and  worldly 
minded.  Bunyan's  man  with  a  muck-rake,  who 
could  look  no  way  but  downward,  raked  to  him 
self,  not  coins  and  rubies,  but  the  straws,  the 
small  sticks,  and  the  dust  of  the  floor.  In  making 
a  bargain  with  a  Mount  Desert  man  one  must  not 
expect  to  find  him  less  skilful  and  wary  than  a 
city  Yankee.  On  the  contrary,  he  may  appear 
more  suspicious,  because  he  is  less  self-confident. 
The  men  do  not  always  take  their  hats  off  in  the 
house,  even  in  the  presence  of  women,  and  men, 
women,  and  children  are  habitually  reticent  and 
undemonstrative  in  manner.  One  who  engages  a 
Mount  Desert  laborer  or  mechanic  to  do  a  piece  of 
work  will  probably  receive  the  impression  that  it 
is  the  employed  who  consents  to  do  a  favor  to  the 
employer.  On  the  other  hand,  the  employer  is 
pretty  sure  to  get  a  fair  day's  work  done.  The 
butcher,  the  fish-dealer,  and  the  grocer  dispense 

127 


Tbe  Forgotten  Millions 

their  goods  for  a  consideration,  to  be  sure,  but 
chiefly,  it  would  appear,  to  accommodate  their 
neighbors.  "Can  you  let  me  have  some  eggs 
to-day  ?  "  or,  "  can  you  spare  me  some  halibut "  is 
a  natural  mode  of  opening  a  negotiation  for  these 
commodities.  In  short,  the  manners  of  the  people 
express  the  independence  they  feel;  and  if  they 
have  not  so  much  responsiveness  and  alertness  as 
city  people,  it  is  because  they  have  not  so  much 
practice  in  meeting  strangers. 

But  perhaps  to  people  who  live  crowded  together 
in  closely-built  cities  the  life  of  a  Mount  Desert 
family  seems  solitary  and  dreary.  They  cannot 
hear  the  newsboys'  and  hucksters'  cries,  the  rattle 
of  vehicles  and  clatter  of  hoofs  on  stone  pavements, 
the  buzz  and  rumble  of  electric  cars,  and  the 
screaming  of  factory  whistles.  They  cannot  see 
the  thronged  street  and  the  gay  shop  windows,  the 
electric  lights,  the  grand  houses,  and  the  public 
monuments.  They  cannot  ride  on  street-cars,  par 
ade  on  Main  Street  or  Fifth  Avenue,  and  visit  at 
pleasure  the  dime  museum,  the  dog,  cat,  horse,  or 
baby  show,  or  the  negro  minstrels.  These  indeed 
are  some  of  the  sights,  sounds,  and  social  privileges 
which  are  denied  to  a  rural  and  seaboard  popula 
tion.  Still  they  have  compensations.  They  hear 
the  loud  monotone  of  the  surf  on  the  outer  islands, 
the  splash  of  the  waves  on  the  inner  beaches,  the 
rushing  of  the  brook,  the  cawing  of  crows,  the 
songs  of  robins  and  thrushes,  and  the  rustling  of 
the  leaves  in  the  breeze.  They  see  the  sky,  the  sea, 
the  woods,  the  ponds,  and  the  hills  in  all  the  vary- 

128 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

ing  lights  and  shadows  of  summer  and  winter, 
morning  and  evening,  sunshine  and  storm.  Then, 
too,  they  have  many  social  enjoyments.  Town- 
meeting  gives  the  men  a  whole  day  of  pleasure7': 
first,  the  Ibng  drive  or  walk  in  company  to  the 
meeting-place ;  then  the  morning  session ;  then 
the  dinner  provided  by  public-spirited  women  for 
twenty  or  twenty-five  cents  a  head,  the  proceeds  to 
go  for  some  public  object,  like  a  plank  sidewalk  or 
a  fence  for  the  cemetery ;  then  the  afternoon  ses 
sion,  big  with  important  issues ;  and  then  the  cheer 
ful  return  home.  Sewing-circles  are  maintained  in 
the  most  populous  neighborhoods — sometimes  two 
in  the  same  neighborhood,  one  for  the  mature 
matrons  and  another  for  the  girls.  A  circle  sews, 
not  for  the  poor, — for  there  are  none, — but  for  some 
public  object,  like  an  organ  for  the  Sunday  meeting, 
or  a  library  for  the  Sunday-school;  and  when  it 
holds  its  sale  of  the  articles  it  has  made,  it  gives  a 
supper-party — admission  ten,  fifteen,  or  twenty 
cents,  according  to  the  costliness  of  the  supper. 
There  are  hulled-corn  suppers,  ice-cream  suppers, 
strawberry  suppers,  and  turkey  suppers.  Then 
there  are  dancing-schools  and  singing-schools,  and 
latterly  there  have  been  choir  rehearsals  in  addi 
tion.  Now  and  then  a  traveling  showman  sum 
mons  the  population  to  his  ten-cent  show.  Occa 
sionally  a  combination  of  native  talent  gives  a 
recital  or  a  little  play.  The  "  lodge  "  draws  the  men 
together,  and  the  women  too,  for  Simple  entertain 
ments.  The  necessity  of  giving  and  receiving  help 
in  household  emergencies  adds  variety  to  the  lives 

9  I2Q 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

of  the  women.  If  the  mother  of  a  family  is  disabled 
somebody  must  go  and  help  her,  for  few  families 
can  afford  to  hire  assistance.  The  neighbors  do  the 
work  until  an  aunt,  a  sister,  or  a  niece  can  arrive 
from  the  mainland  or  from  some  other  part  of  the 
island.  There  is  no  little  visiting  for  pleasure 
among  relations,  the  visits  lasting,  not  twenty 
minutes  or  through  a  single  meal,  as  among  hur 
rying  city  people,  but  for  several  days.  Thus  a 
Mount  Desert  man  and  wife  will  go  to  Bangor  in 
the  fall,  when  the  steamboat  fares  are  reduced  one 
half,  and  pay  a  week's  visit  to  some  cousins  who 
live  in  that  metropolis ;  in  the  next  June  the  Ban 
gor  cousins  will  return  the  visit.  The  cost  of  the 
exchange  of  visits  is  only  the  steamboat  fares ;  for 
the  two  families  have  just  about  the  same  food  and 
mode  of  life,  and  what  the  hosts  expend  the  guests 
save.  The  system  may  be  extended  even  to  remote 
places  like  Massachusetts.  A  married  aunt  in  Bos 
ton  entertains  her  nephew  and  his  wife  for  a  week 
in  the  early  spring;  the  next  summer  the  aunt 
comes  alone  to  Mount  Desert,  and  spends  a  fort 
night  with  her  nephew.  Of  course  the  men  get 
more  variety  than  the  women,  because  they  often 
work  in  "  crews,"  as  on  vessels,  on  the  roads,  on  new 
buildings,  and  in  the  quarries;  and  also  because 
they  travel  more  by  land  and  by  sea,  vote,  serve  on 
juries,  and  act  as  town  and  county  officers. 

The  people  of  Mount  Desert  are  free  and  at 
ease,  very  conservative  for  the  familiar  reason 
"  we  're  well  'nough  's  we  air,"  and  very  indifferent 
to  the  social  speculations  of  nervous  residents  in 

130 


The  Forgotten  Millions 

cities.  The  single  tax  on  land  strikes  them  as 
absurd.  The  socialists'  proposition  that  the  com 
munity  owes  everybody  at  least  a  livelihood  seems 
to  them  an  old  story.  "It  has  always  been  so 
in  this  town,"  they  truly  say.  Whether  or  no 
cities  should  make  their  own  gas,  as  the  Nation 
alists  propose,  is  a  matter  of  profound  indifference 
to  them.  Kerosene  is  their  reliance.  On  the 
question  whether  Government  should  manage  the 
telegraphs  —  the  other  practical  proposal  of  the 
Nationalists — they  might  possibly  have  an  opinion 
in  the  negative,  because  they  suffer  from  the 
wretched  management  of  their  post-offices  by  the 
National  Government.  The  postmasters  are  fre 
quently  changed,  the  routes  are  badly  arranged, 
and  the  mails  are  carried  by  horses  which  can 
hardly  drag  one  foot  after  another.  "  The  mean 
est  and  worst-used  horses  on  our  roads  are 
hitched  to  the  United  States  stage,"  said  an  in 
dignant  villager  last  summer.  They  hear  of  strikes, 
lock-outs,  and  boycotts  in  remote  regions  like  New 
York,  Pittsburg,  and  Chicago  with  much  the  same 
sort  of  pitying  interest  that  the  tenement-house 
horrors,  the  midsummer  slaughter  of  infants,  the 
great  conflagrations,  and  the  multitude  of  acci 
dents,  crimes,  and  disasters  which  happen  amid  a 
dense  population  excite  in  them.  "  Why  will  peo 
ple  stay  in  such  places  ? "  "  How  thankful  we 
ought  to  be  that  we  don't  live  in  cities,"  are 
common  expressions  among  them.  It  is  difficult 
to  transplant  Mount  Desert  people.  They  prefer 
their  sterile  but  beautiful  island  to  any  other 

131 


Tbe  Forgotten  Millions 

place  in  the  world,  and  if  they  leave  it  for  a  time 
they  are  always  desiring  and  expecting  to  return 
to  it.  Factory  operatives,  unsatisfied  mechanics, 
and  city  folks  generally — they  would  say — may 
find  as  much  fault  as  they  please  with  the  con 
stitution  of  their  own  society,  and  may  upset 
their  social  pyramid  as  often  as  they  choose, 
provided  it  be  clearly  understood  that  the  insti 
tutions  and  society  of  Mount  Desert  are  to  be 
left  untouched,  since  they  are  already  perfectly 
satisfactory  to  all  concerned. 

The  manners  and  customs  of  the  people  of  the 
town  have  thus  far  been  very  little  affected  by  the 
inroad  of  summer  visitors.  About  a  dozen  families 
have  learned  to  take  boarders,  and  have  enlarged 
their  houses  considerably  for  this  purpose;  a  few 
more  families  have  sold  portions  of  their  farms, 
and  with  the  proceeds  have  built  for  themselves 
better  houses ;  and  there  is  more  work  both  for 
men  and  women  in  summer  than  there  used  to 
be.  Still  the  habits  of  the  people  are  essentially 
unchanged,  and  the  town  is  managed  precisely  as 
it  was  before  1881. 

Now  this  sequestered,  wholesome,  and  contented 
community  affords  a  fair  type  of  the  organization 
of  basal  American  society.  Due  allowance  made 
for  differences  of  climate,  soil,  diet,  and  local  usage, 
this  is  very  much  the  way  in  which  from  thirty 
to  forty  millions  of  the  American  people  live. 


132 


FAMILY  STOCKS   IN  A   DEMOCRACY 

PUBLISHED  IN  THE  "  FORUM,"  1890 


FAMILY  STOCKS  IN  A  DEMOCRACY 


IN  an  address  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  So 
ciety  of  Harvard  University  two  years  ago,  I 
endeavored  to  show,  among  other  things,  that 
democratic  government,  as  distinguished  from  aris 
tocratic  or  autocratic  government,  has  no  quarrel, 
as  has  been  alleged,  with  the  biological  law  of 
hereditary  transmission ;  that  families  can  be  made 
just  as  enduring  in  a  democratic  as  in  an  oligarchic 
state;  and  that  the  highest  types  of  manners  in 
men  and  women  are  produced  abundantly  on  demo 
cratic  soil.  I  maintained  that  the  social  mobility 
of  a  democracy,  which  permits  the  excellent  and 
well-endowed  of  either  sex  to  rise  unimpeded  from 
lower  to  higher  levels,  and  to  seek  each  other  out, 
and  which  gives  every  advantageous  variation  in 
a  family  stock  free  opportunity  to  develop,  is  im 
measurably  more  beneficial  to  a  nation  than  any 
selective  in-breeding,  founded  on  class  distinctions, 
that  has  ever  been  devised.  I  pointed  out  that 
democracy  promotes  the  transmission  and  develop 
ment  of  inheritable  virtues  and  powers,  although  it 

135 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

does  not  add  to  the  natural  sanctions  of  the  law  of 
heredity  an  unnecessary  bounty  of  privileges*  con 
ferred  by  law,  and,  indeed,  abolishes  the  legal  trans 
mission  of  artificial  privileges.  On  that  occasion  I 
had  no  time  to  do  more  than  to  mention  some  of 
the  means  of  perpetuating  good  family  stocks  in  a 
democracy.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  the 
principal  means  of  preserving  useful  families  in 
democratic  society  ought  to  be  fully  discussed; 
because  the  family,  rather  than  the  individual,  is 
the  important  social  unit ;  because  the  perpetuation 
of  sound  families  is  of  the  highest  social  interest ; 
and  because  the  democratic  form  of  government  is 
that  form  which  in  a  few  years,  or  a  few  genera 
tions,  will  prevail  all  over  the  civilized  world.  To 
that  discussion  I  venture  to  contribute  the  follow 
ing  considerations. 

It  must  be  observed,  in  the  first  place,  that  the 
social  freedom  and  mobility  which  permit  every 
superior  person  to  rise  to  his  appropriate  level  in 
democratic  society  would  be  doubtful  advantages, 
if  for  every  person  or  family  which  should  rise  an 
other  should  sink.  If  society  as  a  whole  is  to  gain 
by  mobility  and  openness  of  structure,  those  who 
rise  must  stay  up  in  successive  generations,  that 
the  higher  levels  of  society  may  be  constantly  en 
larged,  and  that  the  proportion  of  pure,  gentle, 
magnanimous,  and  refined  persons  may  be  steadily 
increased.  New-risen  talent  should  reinforce  the 
upper  ranks.  New  families  rising  to  eminent  sta 
tion  should  be  additions  to  those  which  already 
hold  high  place  in  the  regard  of  their  neighbors, 

136 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

and  should  not  be  merely  substitutes  for  decaying 
families.  In  feudal  society,  when  a  man  had  once 
risen  to  high  rank,  there  were  systematic  arrange 
ments,  like  primogeniture  and  entailed  estates,  for 
keeping  his  posterity  in  the  same  social  order.  A 
democratic  society  sanctions  no  such  arrangements, 
and  does  not  need  them;  yet  for  the  interests  of 
the  state,  the  assured  permanence  of  superior 
families  is  quite  as  important  as  the  free  starting 
of  such  families. 

Before  going  further,  I  ought  to  explain  what  I 
mean  by  good,  or  superior,  family  stocks.  I  cer 
tainly  do  not  mean  merely  rich  families.  Some 
rich  families  are  physically  and  morally  superior ; 
others  are  not.  Obviously,  in  our  country  sudden 
and  inordinate  wealth  makes  it  not  easier,  but 
harder,  to  bring  up  a  family  well.  Neither  do  I 
have  sole  reference  to  professional  or  other  soft- 
handed  people  who  live  in  cities.  On  the  contrary, 
such  persons  often  lack  the  physical  vigor  which  is 
essential  to  a  good  family  stock.  I  have  in  mind 
sturdy,  hard-working,  capable,  and  trustworthy 
people,  who  are  generally  in  comfortable  circum 
stances  simply  because  their  qualities  are  those 
which  command  reasonable  material,  as  well  as 
moral,  success.  I  have  in  mind,  for  instance,  a 
family  whose  members  have  multiplied  and  thriven 
in  one  New  England  village  for  130  years,  always 
industrious,  well-to-do,  and  respected,  but  never 
rich  or  highly  educated,  working  with  their  hands, 
holding  town  and  county  offices,  leading  in  village 
enterprises,  independent,  upright,  and  robust.  I 

137 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

have  in  mind  the  thousand  family  stocks  which 
are  represented  by  graduates,  at  intervals,  for  one 
hundred  years  or  more,  on  the  catalogues  of  Har 
vard  and  Yale  colleges  —  families  in  which  comfort, 
education,  and  good  character  have  been  trans 
mitted,  if  riches  or  high  place  have  not.  The  men 
of  a  good  family  stock  may  be  farmers,  mechanics, 
professional  men,  merchants,  or  that  sort  of  men 
of  leisure  who  work  hard  for  the  public.  But  while 
I  give  this  broad  meaning  to  the  term  "  good  family 
stocks,"  I  hold  that  one  kind  of  family  ought  es 
pecially  to  be  multiplied  and  perpetuated,  namely, 
the  family  in  which  gentle  manners,  cultivated 
tastes,  and  honorable  sentiments  are  hereditary. 
Democracy  must  show  that  it  can  not  only  amelior 
ate  the  average  lot,  but  also  produce,  as  the  genera 
tions  pass,  a  larger  proportion  of  highly  cultivated 
people  than  'any  other  form  of  government. 

What,  then,  are  the  means  of  perpetuating  good 
family  stocks  in  a  democracy  1  The  first  is  country 
life.  In  this  regard,  democracies  have  much  to 
learn  from  those  European  aristocracies  which 
have  proved  to  be  durable.  All  the  vigorous 
aristocracies  of  past  centuries  lived  in  the  country 
a  large  part  of  the  year.  The  men  were  soldiers 
and  sportsmen,  for  the  most  part,  and  lived  on 
detached  estates  sparsely  peopled  by  an  agricul 
tural  and  martial  tenantry.  They  were  oftener 
in  camp  than  in  the  town  or  city.  Their  women 
lived  in  castles,  halls,  or  chateaux  in  the  open 
country  almost  the  whole  year,  and  their  children 
were  born  and  brought  up  there.  The  aristocratic 

158 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

and  noble  families  of  modern  Europe  still  have 
their  principal  seats  in  the  country,  and  go  to 
town  only  for  a  few  months  of  the  year.    These 
customs  maintain  vigor  of  body  and  equability  of 
mind.    It  is  not  necessary,  however,  to  go  to  Eu 
rope  to  find  illustrations  of  modes  of  life  favora 
ble  to  the  healthy  development  and  preservation 
of  superior  families.    In  the  last  century;  and  in 
the  early  part  of  this  century,  the  country  minis 
ter  and  the  country  lawyer  in  New  England  were 
often  founders,  or  members  by  descent,  of  large 
and  vigorous  family  stocks,  in  which  well-being 
and  well-doing  were  securely  transmitted.    Their 
lives  were  tranquil,  simple,  not  too  laborious,  and 
sufficiently    intellectual ;     and    their    occupations 
took  them  much  out  of  doors.     They  had  a  rec 
ognized    leadership    in    the  village    communities 
where  they  made  their  homes,   and  also  in  the 
commonwealth  *  at  large.     They  took  thought  for 
education   in   general,  and   for  the  recruiting  of 
their  own  professions ;  and  they  had  a  steadying 
and   uplifting   sense   of  responsibility  for   social 
order  and  progress,  and  for  state  righteousness. 
In  many  cases  they  transmitted  their  professions 
in  their   own  families.     So   excellent  were   these 
combined  conditions  for  bringing  up  robust  and 
capable  families,  that  to-day  a  large  proportion 
of  New  England  families  of  conspicuous   merit 
descended  on   one  side   or  the  other  from  a 
minister  or  a  lawyer. 

In  American  society  of  to-day  the  conditions  of 
professional  and  business  life  are  ordinarily  un- 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

favorable  to  the  establishment  of  families  in  the 
country.  The  great  industries  are  carried  on  at 
centers  of  dense  population ;  trade  is  concentrated 
in  large  towns  and  cities;  lawyers,  journalists, 
and  artists  of  every  degree,  medical  specialists, 
architects,  and  consulting  engineers,  must  all 
spend  their  days  in  cities.  The  well-educated 
country  minister  and  country  lawyer  have  almost 
disappeared.  Population  tends  more  and  more  to 
concentrate  in  dense  masses.  In  a  few  of  our 
older  States,  from  50  to  75  per  cent,  of  the  whole 
population  live  in  groups  or  assemblages  num 
bering  8000  persons  or  more.  City  life  is  change 
ful,  noisy,  exciting,  and  hurrying;  country  life  is 
monotonous,  leisurely,  and  calm.  For  young  chil 
dren  particularly,  the  necessary  conditions  of 
dense  populations  are  unfavorable.  How  great 
the  difference  is  between  an  urban  and  a  rural 
population  in  the  average  age  of  all  who  die, 
may  be  conveniently  illustrated  from  the  regis 
tration  reports  of  Massachusetts,  which  have  now 
been  published  for  47  years,  and  are  believed  to 
be  reasonably  accurate.  In  the  thirty  years  from 
1850  to  1880,  the  average  age  of  all  the  persons 
who  died  in  Suffolk  County,  an  urban  county  on 
the  seaboard,  was  23£  years ;  the  corresponding 
age  in  Barnstable,  a  rural  county  on  the  same 
seaboard,  was  37;  in  Franklin,  an  inland  rural 
county,  it  was  38£ ;  while  in  the  island  county  of 
Nantucket  it  was  very  nearly  double  the  average 
age  at  death  in  Suffolk,  namely,  46.15.  The  same 
reports  show  that  the  annual  death-rate  is  uni- 

140 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

formly  higher  in  the  densely  populated  counties 
than  in  the  sparsely  populated  ones.  Other  causes 
besides  density  of  population  contribute  to  pro 
duce  these  striking  results ;  but  the  main  fact  re 
mains  that  a  family  which  lives  in  the  country 
has  a  better  chance  of  continuance  than  one 
which  lives  in  the  city.  Moreover,  if  we  study 
the  family  histories  of  the  actual  leaders,  for  the 
time  being,  in  business  and  the  professions  in 
any  American  city,  we  shall  usually  find  that  a 
very  large  proportion  of  them  were  country-bred. 
The  country  breeding  gives  a  vigor  and  an  en 
durance  which  in  the  long  run  outweigh  all  city 
advantages,  and  enable  the  well-endowed  country 
boys  to  outstrip  their  city-bred  competitors. 

A  very  practical  question,  then,  is  how  to  resist, 
in  the  interest  of  the  family,  the  tendency  to  live 
in  cities  and  in  large  towns.  For  families  in  easy 
circumstances  there  is  no  better  way  than  that 
which  European  experience  has  proved  to  be  good, 
namely,  the  possession  of  two  houses,  one  in  the 
country  and  the  other  in  the  city,  the  first  to  be 
occupied  for  the  larger  part  of  the  year;  but 
this  method  is  costly,  and  involves  a  good  many 
things  not  noticed  at  first  sight.  Thus,  for  example, 
it  involves  the  employment  of  governesses  and 
tutors  for  children  under  fifteen  years  of  age,  and 
the  use  of  country  boarding-schools  to  some  extent 
for  older  children.  It  involves,  also,  the  exercise 
of  hospitality  on  a  large  scale,  in  order  to  secure 
social  variety  in  the  country  house.  It  needs, 
too,  good  postal  facilities,  circulating  libraries,  fair 

141 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

roads,  and  some  smooth,  sheltered  footpaths.  Dur 
ing  the  past  thirty  years  there  has  been  in  the 
eastern  States  a  great  increase  in  the  number  of 
families  using  two  houses,  and  the  tendency  in  such 
families  has  been  to  spend  a  longer  and  longer  time 
in  the  country  or  by  the  seaside.  Colleges,  acad 
emies,  and  private  schools  have  arranged  their 
terms  and  vacations  to  meet  this  growing  practice ; 
that  is,  they  have  a  summer  vacation  of  from  three 
to  four  months.  Teachers  of  music  and  the  fine 
arts  in  the  cities  have  no  lessons  to  give  from  the 
first  of  June  to  the  first  of  October.  A  large  num 
ber  of  students  in  Harvard  College  get  engagements 
to  teach  for  the  summer  in  families,  or  groups  of 
families,  which  are  living  in  the  mountains,  in  the 
open  country,  or  by  the  sea.  College  undergradu 
ates  used  to  teach  country  district  schools  for 
twelve  weeks  in  the  winter ;  they  now  teach  in 
families,  or  at  summer  resorts,  for  twelve  weeks  in 
the  summer.  These  facts,  and  many  others  which 
might  be  cited,  indicate  a  wholesome  change  in  the 
habits  of  well-to-do  families,  in  favor  of  country  life. 
The  next  change  for  the  better  to  be  noticed  is 
the  adoption  of  suburban  life  by  great  numbers  of 
families,  both  poor  and  well-to-do,  the  heads  of 
which  must  do  their  daily  work  in  cities.  Recent 
improvements  in  steam  and  electric  railway  trans 
portation  make  it  easy  for  a  family  man,  whose 
work  is  in  the  city  from  eight  or  nine  o'clock  to  five 
or  six  o'clock,  to  live  fifteen  or  even  twenty  miles 
from  his  office  or  shop.  The  chances  are  strong 
that  the  death-rate  in  an  open-built  suburb,  pro- 

142 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

vided  with  good  water  and  good  sewers,  will  be 
decidedly  lower  than  in  the  city;  indeed,  that  it 
will  not  be  more  than  from  one  half  to  three 
quarters  of  the  city  death-rate.  In  the  suburb 
are  better  air,  more  sun,  and  a  more  tranquil  life. 
This  method  obtains  more  and  more  in  the  At 
lantic  States  north  of  the  Potomac,  in  England, 
and  in  Australia.  The  advantages  of  suburban 
residence  may,  however,  be  almost  neutralized  for 
the  men,  if  the  daily  travel  to  and  fro  is  made 
wearisome,  annoying,  or  unwholesome.  It  is  always 
to  be  wished  that  the  ride  home  from  shop  or  office 
should  be  a  refreshment  instead  of  an  added  la 
bor.  In  many  American  cities  the  means  of  com 
munication  between  the  business  quarters  and  the 
suburban  residence  quarters  are  so  thoroughly  bad 
that  for  the  men  it  is  a  positive  hardship  to  live  in 
the  suburbs.  It  is  said  that  in  some  of  the  new 
cities  of  Australia,  parks  have  been  laid  out  be 
tween  the  business  and  the  residence  quarters,  so 
that  the  daily  rides  between  the  two  districts  may 
always  be  agreeable. 

A  third  mode  of  combating  the  ill  effects  of 
density  of  population,  and  of  giving  city  families 
some  of  the  advantages  of  country  life,  is  by  in 
creasing  in  cities  the  provision  of  public  squares, 
gardens,  boulevards,  and  public  parks.  The  city 
open  square  or  garden  is  one  thing,  and  the  city 
park  quite  another ;  the  former  being  properly  an 
open-air  sitting-room  or  nursery  for  the  neighbor 
ing  people,  the  second  being  a  large  piece  of  open 
country  brought  into  the  city.  Both  are  needful 

143 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

in  much  larger  number  and  area  than  it  has  been 
the  custom  to  provide  in  American  cities.  It  is  im 
portant  also  to  cultivate  among  our  people  the 
habit  of  using  all  the  squares  and  parks  they  have, 
for  Americans  are  very  far  behind  Europeans  in 
the  intelligent  use  of  such  reservations.  To  this 
end  the  foreign  custom  of  half -holidays  in  the  vari 
ous  trades  is  an  excellent  one,  particularly  if  the 
half-holidays  are  taken  on  Wednesdays  or  Satur 
days,  when  there  are  half-holidays  in  the  public 
schools.  To  promote  healthy  family  enjoyments 
among  laboring  people,  ten  hours'  labor  a  day,  with 
a  half -holiday  once  a  week,  is  a  much  better  indus 
trial  arrangement  than  nine  hours'  labor  every  day 
in  the  week. 

An  important  advantage  which  country  life  has 
over  city  life  is  that  it  requires,  permits,  or  en 
courages  out-of-door  occupations  for  men,  women, 
and  children.  The  farmer  and  his  boys  habitually 
work  in  the  open  air;  the  mill-hand,  clerk,  ma 
chinist,  teacher,  lawyer,  and  minister  work  in 
doors,  often  in  positively  bad  air.  To  offset  the 
evil  effects  of  in-door  occupations,  every  city  fam 
ily  which  aspires  to  vigor  and  permanence  should 
assiduously  seek  fresh  air  and  out-of-door  pleasures 
or  occupations.  All  children  in  well-to-do  fami 
lies  should  be  taught  to  walk  long  distances,  to 
swim  and  to  row,  and  to  ride  on  horseback. 
Girls  need  these  accomplishments  as  much  as 
boys.  In  this  matter,  also,  democratic  society 
must  learn  from  aristocratic.  Rich  people  used 
always  to  be  great  landowners ;  now?  unfortu- 

144 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

nately,  people  may  be  rich  and  yet  own  nothing 
but  stocks  and  bonds — not  even  one  house.  Eu 
ropean  nobilities  were  always  an  agricultural  class, 
loving  good  land  and  good  crops,  rejoicing  in 
horses,  dogs,  and  cattle,  and  delighting  in  hunt 
ing,  fishing,  shooting,  racing,  and  all  other  forms 
of  open-air  sport.  Men,  women,  and  children  rode 
on  horseback  habitually,  and  took  long  journeys 
in  that  wholesome  way.  Their  castles  and  halls 
were  so  open  to  the  air  and  so  little  warmed, 
that  even  their  in-door  life  was  not  so  enervating 
as  ours.  If  modern  democratic  families  are  to 
be  perpetuated  like  ancient  aristocratic  families, 
they  must  live  as  robust  and  healthy  lives.  If 
the  family  occupations  are  not  manual,  the  boys 
should  learn  to  use  some  tools — the  gardener's, 
carpenter's,  turner's,  blacksmith's,  machinist's, 
founder's,  or  plumber's — and  the  girls  should  learn 
to  cut  out,  sew,  knit,  and  cook;  and  whether  the 
family  occupations  are  manual  or  not,  out-of-door 
life  should  be  cultivated  to  the  utmost.  Ameri 
cans  have  not  the  skill  of  Europeans  in  availing 
themselves  of  every  chance  to  eat  or  work  in  the 
open  air,  under  the  shelter  of  a  tree  or  of  a  vine- 
clad  arbor.  Neither  the  poorer  sort  nor  the  richer 
possesses  this  skill,  or  feels  an  irrepressible  desire 
for  such  opportunities.  One  often  sees,  in  the 
suburbs  of  our  cities,  large  and  costly  houses 
placed  in  lots  so  small  that  the  owners  and  their 
families  have  hardly  more  room  for  out-of-door 
pleasures  than  they  would  have  in  a  city  block. 
Many  a  rich  American,  who  occupies  without  any 

10  '43 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

scruple  a  house  worth  $100,000,  will  hesitate  to 
keep  open,  for  the  use  of  his  family  and  for  the 
indirect  advantage  of  his  neighbors,  an  acre  of 
suburban  land  worth  only  $50,000.  The  Germans, 
in  their  native  country,  excel  in  the  out-of-door 
habit.  Every  restaurant  and  beer-garden  must 
have  some  space  out  of  doors,  however  small,  for 
the  use  of  its  patrons  in  the  warmer  half  of  the 
year.  Every  school  takes  care  of  the  natural- 
history  rambles  of  its  pupils.  In  the  long  vaca 
tion,  walking- journeys  for  the  boys  are  arranged 
and  conducted  by  the  teachers.  Families  devote 
a  part  of  every  Sunday  in  good  weather  to  some 
open-air  excursion.  In  some  of  the  smaller  man 
ufacturing  towns  of  Germany,  on  a  pleasant  half- 
holiday,  it  seems  as  if  the  whole  population  had 
deserted  the  houses,  and  had  taken  to  the  open 
air  in  the  streets,  squares,  and  gardens.  It  is  ex 
traordinary  how  little  provision  has  been  made 
in  most  American  towns  and  cities  for  the  out- 
of-door  enjoyments  of  the  population.  Even 
when  public  squares  and  gardens  have  been  re 
served  or  purchased,  they  are  often  left  in  an  un 
kempt  condition  and  without  proper  police  pro 
tection,  and  are  not  provided  with  seats,  shelters 
from  sun  and  wind,  sand-heaps  for  little  children, 
gymnastic  apparatus  for  older  boys  and  girls,  and 
open-air  restaurants  at  which  simple  refreshments 
may  be  obtained.  As  compared  with  European 
governments,  American  democratic  government 
seems  to  take  no  thought  whatever  for  the  health 
ful  enjoyments  of  an  urban  population. 

146 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

I  venture  to  state  next  the  proposition,  that  a 
permanent  family  should  have  a  permanent  dwell 
ing-place,  domicile,  or  home  town.  In  older  socie 
ties  this  has  always  been  the  case.  Indeed,  a  place 
often  lent  its  name  to  a  family.  In  American  so 
ciety  the  identification  of  a  family  with  a  place  is 
comparatively  rare.  In  American  cities  and  large 
towns  there  are  as  yet  no  such  things  as  permanent 
family  houses.  Even  in  the  oldest  cities  of  the 
East,  hardly  any  family  lives  in  a  single  house 
through  the  whole  of  one  generation,  and  two  suc 
cessive  generations  are  rarely  born  in  the  same 
house.  Eapid  changes  of  residence  are  the  rule  for 
almost  everybody,  so  that  a  city  directory  which  is 
more  than  one  year  old  is  untrustworthy  for  home 
addresses.  The  quick  growth  of  the  chief  Ameri 
can  cities,  and  the  conversion  of  residence  quarters 
into  business  quarters,  partly  account  for  the  no 
madic  habits  of  their  inhabitants ;  but  the  inevita 
ble  loss  of  social  dignity  and  repose,  and  the  dimi 
nution  of  local  pride  and  public  spirit,  are  just  as 
grievous  as  if  there  were  no  such  physical  causes 
for  the  restlessness  of  the  population.  The  human 
mind  can  scarcely  attribute  dignity  and  social  con 
sideration  to  a  family  which  lives  in  a  hotel,  or 
which  moves  into  a  new  flat  every  first  of  May. 

In  the  country,  however,  things  are  much  better. 
In  the  older  States  there  are  many  families  which 
have  inhabited  the  same  town  for  several  genera 
tions,  a  few  which  have  inhabited  the  same  house 
for  three  generations,  and  many  farms  that  have 
been  in  the  same  family  for  several  generations; 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

and  in  more  and  more  cases  prosperous  men,  who 
have  made  money  in  business  or  by  their  profes 
sions,  return  to  the  places  where  their  ancestors 
lived,  and  repossess  themselves  of  ancestral  farms 
which  had  passed  into  other  hands.  In  the  country 
it  is  quite  possible,  under  a  democratic  form  of 
government,  that  a  permanent  family  should  have 
a  permanent  dwelling ;  and  in  any  village  or  rural 
town  such  a  family  dwelling  is  always  an  object  of 
interest  and  satisfaction.  To  procure,  keep,  and 
transmit  such  a  homestead  is  a  laudable  family 
ambition.  It  can  be  accomplished  wherever  testa 
mentary  dispositions  are  free,  and  the  object  in 

,  view  is  considered  a  reasonable  and  desirable  one. 
It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  very  few  coun 
try  houses  in  the  United  States  have  thus  far  been 
built  to  last.  We  build  cheap,  fragile,  and  com 
bustible  dwellings,  which,  as  a  rule,  are  hardly 
more  durable  than  the  paper  houses  of  the  Japan 
ese.  Nevertheless,  our  families  might  at  least  do  as 
well  as  the  Japanese  families,  which  are  said  to  live 
a  thousand  or  fifteen  hundred  years  on  the  same 
spot,  although  in  a  series  of  slight  houses.  y 

<1/  The^  next  means  of  promoting  family  permanence 
is  the  transmission  of  a  family  business  or  occupa 
tion  from  father  to  sons.  In  all  old  countries  this 
inheritance  of  a  trade,  shop,  or  profession  is  a  mat 
ter  of  course ;  but  in  our  new  society,  planted  on  a 
fresh  continent,  it  has  not  been  necessary  thus  far 
for  every  family  to  avail  itself,  in  the  struggle  for 
a  good  living,  of  the  advantage  which  inherited 
aptitude  gives.  But  as  population  grows  denser 

148 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

and  competition  for  advantageous  occupations 
grows  more  strenuous,  and  as  industries  become 
more  refined  and  more  subdivided,  the  same  forces 
which  have  produced  the  transmission  of  occupa 
tions  in  families  in  Europe  and  Asia  will  produce 
it  here.  The  children  of  the  ribbon-weaver  can 
learn  to  weave  ribbons  quicker  and  better  than 
any  other  children ;  the  son  of  a  physician  has  a 
better  chance  than  the  son  of  a  tanner  to  learn  the 
art  of  medicine,  and  besides,  he  may  possess  an  in 
herited  faculty  for  medical  observation;  the  son 
of  a  lawyer  can  be  quietly  inducted  into  his  father's 
business  with  great  advantage  to  both  father  and 
son.  In  all  such  cases,  success  depends  on  the 
hearty  cooperation  of  the  children,  who  may  be 
impelled  to  work  either  by  ambition  and  by  an  in 
herited  disposition,  or  by  the  healthy  stimulus  of 
impending  want.  Under  right  conditions,  a  trans 
mitted  business  tends  to  make  a  sound  family  more 
secure  and  permanent,  and  a  permanent  family 
tends  to  hold  and  perfect  a  valuable  business. 
This  principle,  which  is  securely  founded  on  bio 
logical  law,  applies  best  in  the  trades  and  profes 
sions,  in  ordinary  commerce,  and  in  the  industries 
which  do  not  require  immense  capitals ;  but  in  Eu 
rope  many  vast  industries  and  many  great  finan 
cial  and  mercantile  concerns  are  family  properties, 
and  there  is  in  our  own  country  already  a  distinct 
tendency  to  this  family  management  of  large  busi 
nesses,  as  being  more  economical  and  vigilant  than 
corporate  management,  and  more  discerning  and 
prompt  in  selecting  and  advancing  capable  men  of 

'49 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

all  grades.  The  principle  seems  frequently  to  fail 
in  this  country  in  regard  to  the  sons  of  uneducated 
men  who  have  become  very  rich  through  some  pe 
culiar  skill  or  capacity  of  their  own  which  is  not 
transmissible,  or  at  least  is  not  transmitted.  The 
difficulty  seems  to  be  that  the  sons  feel  no  sense  of 
responsibility  for  their  privileges  and  no  induce 
ment  to  work.  Brought  up  to  do  nothing,  they 
sink  into  the  life  of  mere  idlers,  and  are  dispos 
sessed  by  hard-working  and  ambitious  men  of  the 
very  business  which  the  fathers  created,  and  would 
gladly  have  had  their  sons  inherit. 

The  most  important  of  all  aids  in  perpetuating 
sound  family  stocks  is  education.  Whatever  level 
of  education  a  family  has  reached  in  one  genera 
tion,  that  level  at  least  should  be  attained  by  the 
succeeding  generation.  It  is  a  bad  sign  of  family 
continuance  if  a  farmer,  who  was  himself  sent 
away  from  home  to  a  country  academy  for  two  or 
three  terms,  does  not  give  his  son  the  same  or  a 
corresponding  opportunity.  It  is  a  bad  sign  if  a 
clerk  in  the  city,  who  himself  went  through  the 
high  school,  is  content  that  his  son  should  stop  at 
the  grammar  school.  It  is  a  bad  sign  if  a  profes 
sional  man,  whose  father  sent  him  to  college,  can 
not  do  as  much  for  his  son.  Diminution  of  edu 
cational  privileges  in  a  family  generally  means 
either  decline  in  material  prosperity  or  loss  of  per 
ception  of  mental  and  spiritual  values.  The  latter 
loss  is  a  deal  worse  than  loss  of  property  in  its 
effect  on  family  permanence ;  for  low  intellectual 
and  moral  standards  are  fatal  to  family  worth, 

150 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

whereas  countless  excellent  families  meet  with  re 
verses  in  business,  suffer  losses  by  flood  or  fire,  or 
confide  in  untrustworthy  persons,  and  yet  survive 
with  all  their  inherent  mental  and  spiritual  excel 
lences.  In  a  righie^u^d^niojjracy  the  qualities 
which  make  a  family  permanent  are  jaunty,  integ 
rity,  common  sense,  -and  weU-direc  ted .ambition. 
Neither  plain  living  nor  rich  living  is  essential,  but 
high  thinking  is.  Now,  the  ultimate  object  of  _ed- 
ucation,  whether  elementary,  secondary,  or  higher, 
is  to  develop  high  thinking.  What,  for  example, 
is  the  prime  object  of  teaching  a  child  to  read  ?  Is 
it  that  he  may  be  able  to  read  a  way  bill,  a  pro 
missory  note,  or  an  invoice?  Is  it  that  he  may 
he  better  able  to  earn  his  living  !  No  !  These  are 
merely  incidental  and  comparatively  insignificant 
advantages.  The  prime  object  is  to  expand  his 
intelligence,'  to  enrich  his  imagination,  to  introduce 
him  to  all  the  best  human  types  both  of  the  past 
and  of  the  present,  to  give  him  the  key  to  all 
knowledge,  to  fill  him  with  wonder  and  awe,  and 
to  inspire  him  with  hope  and  love.  Nothing  less 
than  this  is  the  object  of  learning  to  read;  nothing 
better  or  more  vital  than  this  is  the  object  of  the 
most  prolonged  and  elaborate  education.  The  im 
provement  of  the  human  being  in  all  his  higher 
attributes  and  powers  is  the  true  end;  other  ad 
vantages  are  reaped  on  the  way,  but  the  essential 
gain  is  a  purified,  elevated,  and  expanded  mind. 
We  often  hear  it  said  that  high-school  graduates 
have  learned  too  much,  or  have  been  trained  out  of 
their  sphere, —  whatever  that  may  mean, —  and  that 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

colleges  do  not  produce  the  captains  of  industry. 
Such  criticisms  fly  very  wide  of  their  mark.  They, 
do  not  conform  to  the  facts,  and  they  betray  in 
those  who  make  them  a  fundamental  misconcep 
tion  of  the  ultimate  object  of  all  education.  The 
object  of  education  and  of  family  life  is  not  to 
promote  industry  and  trade;  rather  the  supreme 
object  of  all  industry  and  trade  is  to  promote  edu 
cation  and  the  normal  domestic  joys.  We  should 
not  live  to  work,  but  work  to  live  —  live  in  the 
home  affections,  in  the  knowledge  and  love  of  na 
ture,  in  the  delights  of  reading  and  contemplation, 
in  the  search  for  truth,  and  in  the  worship  of  the 
beautiful  and  good.  In  urging  this  view  of  the 
object  of  education,  I  have  presented  the  only  ar 
gument  needed  to  convince  a  fair-minded  man  that 
the  family  which  would  last  must  look  to  the  edu 
cation  of  its  children. 

>  A  few  words  ought  to  be  said  on  wise  marriage, 
for  that  wisdom  is  of  as  much  consequence  to 
family  permanence  in  a  democracy  as  in  any  other 
state  of  society.  In  the  first  place,  reasonably 
early  marriages  are  desirable,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  family  permanence,  because  they  give 
better  promise  of  children,  and  because  the  chil 
dren  of  an  early  marriage  will  be  sooner  ready  to 
aid  the  parents  or  the  surviving  parent.  A  farmer 
who  marries  at  twenty-two  may  have  helpful  chil 
dren  by  the  time  he  is  thirty-five.  A  professional 
man,  or  a  mechanic,  who  marries  at  twenty-four, 
may  have  a  son  ready  to  take  up  his  business  by 
the  time  the  father  is  fifty ;  whereas,  if  he  delays 

152 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

marriage  until  he  if  thirty-four,  he  cannot  have  his 
son  for  a  partner  until  he  is  himself  approaching 
sixty.  It  is  a  bad  sign  that  among  rich  and  well- 
to-do  Americans  marriage  begins  to  be  unduly  post 
poned;  but  this  evil  is  a  limited  one,  because  it 
affects  only  a  very  small  proportion  of  the  popula 
tion,  and  often  works  its  own  cure  by  extinguish 
ing  the  families  which  persistently  practise  it. 
Secondly,  free  selection  of  mates,  under  the  guid 
ance  of  mutual  affinities  and  repulsions,  is  the 
democratic  metnod  in  marriage ;  and  biological 
science--  indicates  that  this  is  probably  the  best 
possible  way  of  producing  and  maintaining  a  vig 
orous  race.  Selective  in-breeding,  such  as  has 
been  attempted  in  noble  families  in  Europe,  has 
not  succeeded;  selection  superintended  by  elders, 
as  in  France,  certainly  works  no  better  than  free  se 
lection  ;  and  marriage  by  commercial  arrangement, 
or  by  purchase  more  or  less  disguised,  whether  of 
the  woman  by  the  man  or  of  the  man  by  the 
woman,  is  certainly  not  conducive  either  to  family 
happiness  or  to  family  permanence  in  our  day,  what 
ever  it  may  have  been  in  patriarchal  or  matriarchal 
times.  Every  principle  of  political  and  social  free 
dom  tends  to  confirm  and  to  establish  the  practice 
of  unrestricted  freedom  of  selection  in  marriage ;  so 
that  we  may  well  believe  that  American  practices 
in  this  regard  will  ultimately  become  universal. 
With  a  view  to  family  permanence  and  to  continu 
ous  improvement,  there  are  two  directions  in  which 
the  common  American  marriage  practices  might 
be  improved.  In  the  first  place,  among  attractions 

153 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

for  either  sex,  physical  streDgth  and  constitutional 
vigor  and  promise  should  count  for  more  than  they 
generally  do ;  and  among  repulsions,  constitutional 
weakness  or  delicacy  and  bad  bodily  inheritances 
should  also  count  for  more.  Secondly,  engage 
ments  to  marry  should  not  be  made  until  the  edu 
cation  of  both  parties  has  been  completed,  and  their 
tastes  and  capacities  have  become  tolerably  well 
denned.  Many  ill-assorted  marriages  result  from 
engagements  made  before  one  of  the  parties  has 
attained  his  or  her  mental  growth,  or  become  ac 
quainted  with  his  or  her  powers  and  inclinations. 
Suggestions  are  frequently  made  nowadays  that 
the  human  race  could  be  improved  by  utterly  abol 
ishing  the  institution  of  the  family,  and  applying 
to  men  and  women  the  methods  of  breeding  which 
are  successfully  applied  to  domestic  animals.  All 
these  suggestions  fly  in  the  face  of  every  doctrine 
of  human  rights  which  mankind  has  been  pain 
fully  trying  for  centuries  to  establish,  and  which  at 
last  it  sees  recognized  by  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  race.  Moreover,  in  the  domestic  animals  men 
have  sought  to  reproduce  and  to  develop  certain 
bodily  powers;  they  have  not  had  to  deal  with 
mental  and  spiritual  gifts.  They  have  sought  the 
best  trotters  among  horses,  the  best  milkers  among, 
cows,  and  the  best  layers  among  hens.  The  prob 
lem  of  improving  the  human  race  is  infinitely  more 
complex ;  for  the  main  improvements  to  be  sought, 
although  undoubtedly  having  a  physical  basis,  are 
improvements  in  mental  and  spiritual  powers,  the 
relations  of  which  to  the  body  are  by  no  means 

154 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

understood.  To  the  solution  of  this  more  complex 
and  more  recondite  problem  the  results  obtained  in 
the  breeding  of  valuable  varieties  of  domestic  ani 
mals  contribute  hardly  anything  of  value.  Mean 
time,  the  family  remains  the  most  sacred,  durable, 
and  potent  of  human  institutions,  and  through  it 
must  be  sought  the  replenishment  and  improve 
ment  of  society. 

If  adequate  laws  and  institutions  provide  for  the 
safe  holding  and  transmission  of  property,  what 
ever  promotes  thrift  and  accumulation  of  property 
in  families  promotes  family  permanence.  Democ 
racy  distrusts  exaggerated  accumulations  of  prop 
erty  in  single  hands ;  but  it  firmly  believes  in  private 
property  to  that  extent  which  affords  reasonable 
privacy  for  the  family,  promotes  family  continu 
ance,  and  gives  full  play  to  the  family  motive  for 
making  soil,  sea,  and  all  other  natural  resources 
productive  for  human  uses.  Thus  democratic  leg 
islation  incorporates  and  protects  savings  banks, 
trust  companies,  insurance  companies  of  all  kinds, 
benefit  societies,  and  cooperative  loan  and  building 
associations,  which  are  all  useful  institutions  for 
promoting  thrift,  if  they  are  vigilantly  watched 
and  wisely  controlled  by  the  state.  But  the  most 
^direct  legislative  contribution  to  family  perma 
nence,  apart  from  marriage  and  divorce  laws,  is  to 
be  found  in  the  laws  regulating  the  transmission 
of  land,  buildings,  implements,  wagons,  vessels, 
household  goods,  and  domestic  animals,  both  by 
will  or  contract  and  in  the  absence  of  will  or  con 
tract.  The  great  majority  of  families  hold  no  other 

155 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

kinds  of  property  than  these,  the  ancient  and  uni 
versal  kinds.  Stocks  and  bonds,  forms  of  property 
which  have  practically  been  created  within  forty 
years,  are  held  only  by  an  insignificant  proportion 
of  families;  so  that  legislation  affecting  unfavor 
ably  the  transmission  of  these  new  forms  of  prop 
erty  from  one  generation  to  another  could  not  be 
very  injurious  to  the  family  as  an  institution.  For 
example,  succession  taxes  on  stocks  and  bonds 
might  be  imposed  without  serious  harm.  On  the 
other  hand,  any  legislation  which  should  destroy 
or  greatly  impair  the  inheritable  value  of  land,  or 
of  improvements  on  land,  would  be  a  heavy  blow 
at  family  permanence,  particularly  in  a  state  where 
land  is  for  the  most  part  owned  by  the  occupiers. 
The  farm,  the  village  lot,  and  the  town  or  city 
house  with  its  appurtenances  and  contents,  consti 
tute  transmissible  family  property  in  the  vast  ma 
jority  of  cases.  In  the  interests  of  the  family, 
democratic  legislation  on  inheritances  should  chiefly 
regard,  not  the  few  estates  which  are  counted  in 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars,  but  the  millions 
which  are  counted  in  hundreds  of  dollars.  Inheri 
tances  of  a  few  hundreds  of  dollars  have  a  great 
importance  from  the  point  of  view  of  family  per 
manence  ;  for  most  inheritances  are  on  that  scale, 
and  five  hundred  dollars  means  a  favorable  start 
in  life  for  any  young  working  man  or  woman.  The 
proposal  to  destroy  by  taxation  the  transmissible 
value  of  land  seems  to  be  aimed  at  the  few  un 
reasonably  rich,  but  it  would  strike  hardest  the 
frugal  and  hard-working  millions. 

156 


Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy 

Lastly,  family  permanence  is  promoted  by  the 
careful  training  of  successive  generations  in  truth, 
gentleness,  purity,  and  honor.  It  is  a  delightful 
fact  that  these  noble  qualities  are  in  the  highest 
degree  hereditary,  and  just  as  much  so  in  a  demo 
cratic  as  in  an  aristocratic  society.  They  are  to  be 
acquired  also  by  imitation  and  association ;  so  that 
a  good  family  stock  almost  invariably  possesses 
and  transmits  some  of  them.  Truth  is  the  sturdi 
est  and  commonest  of  these  virtues ;  gentleness  is  a 
rarer  endowment;  purity  and  honor  are  the  finest 
and  rarest  of  them  all.  In  a  gentleman  or  a  lady  they 
are  all  combined.  Democratic  society  has  already 
proved  that  ladies  and  gentlemen  can  be  made 
much  more  quickly  than  people  used  to  suppose; 
but  since  it  has  been  in  existence  hardly  one  hun 
dred  years,  it  has  not  yet  had  time  to  demonstrate 
its  full  effect  in  producing  and  multiplying  the  best 
family  stocks.  It  has  already  done  enough,  how 
ever,  to  justify  us  in  believing  that  in  this  impor 
tant  respect,  as  in  many  others,  it  will  prove  itself 
the  best  of  all  forms  of  social  organization. 

Does  any  one  ask,  Why  take  so  much  thought 
for  the  permanence  of  superior  families?  I  reply 
that  the  family  is  the  main  object  of  all  the  striv 
ing  and  struggling  of  most  men,  and  that  the  wel 
fare  of  the  family  is  the  ultimate  end  of  all  industry, 
trade,  education,  and  government.  If  the  family 
under  a  democratic  form  of  government  is  prosper 
ous  and  permanent,  the  state,  and  civilization  itself, 
will  be  safer  and  safer  through  all  generations. 


'57 


EQUALITY  IN  A  REPUBLIC 

FROM  THE  "CAMBRIDGE  MAGAZINE,"  MAY,  1896 


EQUALITY   IN   A   REPUBLIC 


MANY  people  are  much  disappointed  because 
it  has  turned  out  that  our  free  institutions 
do  not  produce  equality  of  condition  among  the 
citizens.  The  motto  of  the  French  Revolution  was, 
"Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity";  and  it  was  ex 
pected  of  the  American  republic  that  it  would  pre 
vent  the  existence  of  great  distinctions  in  regard 
to  wealth  between  its  citizens,  and  tend  decidedly 
toward  equal  conditions  for  all.  An  experience  of 
a  little  over  one  hundred  years  has  demonstrated 
that  republican  institutions  do  not  prevent  the  ex 
istence,  on  the  one  hand  of  a  very  rich  class,  and 
on  the  other  of  a  very  poor  class ;  and  that  between 
these  two  extremes  every  possible  variety  of  con 
dition  may  exist.  In  some  respects  free  institu 
tions  do  certainly  tend  to  equality.  Thus,  they 
make  all  citizens  equal  as  regards  the  suffrage, 
the  security  of  life  and  property,  and  the  duty  of 
obedience  to  the  laws;  they  abolish  hereditary 
privileges,  such  as  titles,  transmissible  offices,  mo 
nopolies,  or  sinecures;  but  they  do  not  interfere 
11  161 


Equality  in  a  Repitblic 

with  the  accumulation  of  property,  or  with  the 
transmission  from  generation  to  generation  of 
property  and  of  all  that  property  can  procure  for 
its  owner. 

Looking  back  on  this  experience,  it  seems  as  if 
any  one  might  have  known  from  the  beginning  that 
a  legal  state  of  secure  individual  liberty  could  not 
but  produce  in  the  long  run  great  inequalities  of 
condition.  The  state  of  society  at  large  under 
freedom  is  perfectly  illustrated  by  the  condition  of 
things  in  a  university,  where  the  choice  of  studies 
is  free,  and  every  student  is  protected  and  encour 
aged  in  developing  to  the  utmost  his  own  gifts  and 
powers.  In  Harvard  University,  for  example,  thou 
sands  of  students  enjoy  an  almost  complete  liberty 
in  the  selection  of  their  studies,  each  man  being 
encouraged  to  select  those  subjects  in  which  he 
most  easily  excels,  and  consequently  finds  most  en 
joyment  and  most  profit.  The  result  is  that  no 
two  students  in  the  University  are  pursuing  the 
same  subjects  with  the  same  success  —  that  is,  at 
taining  the  same  intellectual  results  in  the  same 
time.  If  a  student  at  the  beginning  of  his  course 
has  some  advantage  over  his  fellows  in  the  study 
of  Latin  or  chemistry,  at  the  end  of  four  years  his 
advantage  will  have  been  greatly  increased  by  the 
elaborate  training  in  Latin  or  chemistry  which  he 
has  procured.  The  difference  between  him  and  his 
associates  in  his  acquired  knowledge  of  Latin  or 
chemistry  will  have  become  greater  and  greater, 
and  his  superior  capacity  for  acquiring  a  still  fur 
ther  knowledge  of  the  subject  will  be  much  more 

162 


Equality  in  a  Republic 

marked  at  the  end  of  the  course  than  it  was  at  the 
beginning.  As  one  thousand  students  that  entered 
together  advance'  through  the  college,  they  become 
more  and  more  unlike  in  their  capacities  and  at 
tainments,  the  difference  in  capacity  being  much 
more  important  than  the  difference  in  attainment. 
This  is  the  inevitable  result  of  the  policy  of  free 
dom  of  studies.  Under  any  policy — the  most  re 
pressive  conceivable  —  it  would  be  impossible  to 
keep  the  students  alike  in  attainments  and  ca 
pacities  during  four  years,  even  if  they  were  alike 
at  the  start.  The  only  means  of  turning  them 
out  at  the  end  of  a  four  years'  course  in  a  toler 
ably  even  condition  would  be  to  prescribe  rigidly 
the  same  group  of  subjects  for  every  student, 
and  to  repress  in  every  way  possible  the  unusual 
gifts  of  the  superior  students,  while  stimulating 
to  the  utmost  the  slow  wits  of  the  dullards  and 
sluggards  —  that  is,  a  despotic  government  would 
be  required  to  produce  by  artificial  restrictions 
some  approach  to  equality  of  mental  condition  at 
graduation. 

In  American  public  schools, —  in  which  far  too 
many  pupils  are  placed  before  one  teacher,  and  a 
strict  grading  system  is  employed  as  a  means  of 
helping  her  to  perform  her  impossible  task, —  we 
have  an  illustration  of  the  attempt  to  produce 
from  many  hundreds,  or  even  thousands,  of  chil 
dren  an  approximately  uniform  product  represent 
ing  an  average  of  the  bright  and  the  dull.  This 
method  does  not  succeed  in  producing  mental  uni 
formity;  and,  though  it  fails  to  average  the  chil- 

163    • 


Equality  in  a  Republic 

dren,  the  attempt  is  the  greatest  evil  in  American 
public  schools.  The  manual- training  schools,  which 
have  come  into  existence  in  many  communities 
within  the  last  fifteen  years,  afford  a  valuable  il 
lustration  of  the  inevitable  diversity  of  mental 
product  even  under  a  discipline  intended  to  be 
uniform.  In  such  training  of  the  eye  and  hand  as 
lessons  in  carpentry,  forging,  drawing,  molding, 
and  turning  afford,  it  proves  impossible  to  keep 
the  different  members  of  a  class  together  in  sim 
ultaneous  exercises.  The  members  of  a  class  started 
on  the  same  day  in  forging,  for  example,  soon  get 
separated,  simply  because  one  boy  can  do  a  great 
deal  more  work  and  better  work  than  another.  Some 
boys  are  slow  to  attain  any  excellence  at  all  in  work 
of  eye  and  hand,  while  others  take  naturally  to  fine 
handiwork.  In  every  trade  the  same  irrepressible 
differences  between  workmen  constantly  appear. 
They  are  differences  in  physical  organization,  and 
also  in  disposition  and  will-power;  and  they  last 
through  life,  and  indeed  go  on  increasing  from 
youth  to  age.  No  restrictions  have  yet  been  de 
vised  which  abolish  these  differences.  It  may  be 
agreed  by  workmen  in  the  same  trade  that  a  uni 
form  number  of  hours  shall  constitute  a  day's  work, 
and  uniform  pay  be  given  for  that  uniform  day's 
work.  It  may  be  agreed  that  no  mason  shall  lay 
more  than  a  specified  number  of  bricks  in  a  day, 
or  that  no  compositor  shall  set  more  than  a  speci 
fied  number  of  ems  in  a  day ;  and  yet,  in  spite  of 
these  sacrifices  of  individual  liberty,  the  differences 
between  workmen  will  remain ;  and  it  will  be  found 

164 


Equality  in  a  Republic 

that  employers  exhibit  decided  preferences  in  se 
lecting  hands,  so  that  this  man  will  always  have 
work  and  that  man  will  seldom  have  it.  In  short, 
the  only  way  to  bring  about  uniform  earning-power 
is  to  establish  some  kind  of  despotism,  or  some 
system  of  voluntarily  assumed  restrictions  on  in 
dividual  liberty.  Under  an  absolute  despotism, 
such  as  that  of  the  Sultan  of  Morocco  or  the  Kha 
lifa  of  the  Sudan,  under  which  all  property  is 
held  only  at  the  will  of  the  ruler,  and  every  dis 
tinction  or  public  station  proceeds  solely  from  him, 
and  may  be  at  any  moment  withdrawn  by  him, 
a  kind  of  equality  may  exist  among  all  the  sub 
jects  of  the  despot.  There  is  no  freedom  to  rise, 
and  the  man  who  has  been  lifted  up  may  at  any 
moment  be  cast  down  to  the  lowest  social  stage. 
In  dependence  on  the  will  of  the  despot  great  in 
equalities  of  condition  may  temporarily  exist ;  but 
they  have  no  security  or  permanence.  Before  the 
one  tyrant  all  subjects  are  in  some  sense  equal, 
even  military  rank  being  held  only  at  the  will  of 
the  despot.  The  subjects  of  such  a  government 
are  not  free  to  exercise  their  different  individual 
capacities,  and  there  results  a  low,  though  level, 
social  state. 

These  familiar  illustrations  prepare  us  to  accept 
the  proposition  that  public  freedom  must  result  in 
inequalities  of  condition  among  the  citizens ;  and 
indeed  that  is  just  what  has  happened  in  our  re 
public.  If  all  the  property  in  the  United  States 
should  be  evenly  distributed  among  all  the  citizens 
to-morrow,  on  the  day  after  to-morrow  inequality 
u*  165 


Equality  in  a  Republic 

of  condition  would  again  be  established,  because 
all  men  would  be  legally  free  to  put  into  play,  in 
-  security,  their  very  different  gifts  and  powers  for 
the  acquisition  and  accumulation  of  property. 

But  some  one  may  say :  Granted  that  in  any  one 
generation  the  powers  of  acquisition  of  the  differ 
ent  citizens  must  be  very  unequal,  and  that  hence 
great  differences  of  property  must  arise,  might  not 
these  differences,  which  really  depend  on  the  lib 
erty  and  security  which  free  institutions  provide, 
be  made  non-transmissible,  so  that  each  new  gen 
eration  should  be  obliged  to  begin  over  again  the 
differentiating  process  ?  There  are  two  answers  to 
this  question.  In  the  first  place,  the  distribution 
by  the  state  of  possessions  accumulated  by  one 
citizen,  among  other  citizens  who  had  no  obvious 
part  in  earning  them,  could  not  be  effected  with 
out  pauperizing  the  recipients  of  the  unearned 
bounty ;  and  secondly,  all  social  experience  teaches  ^ 
that  the  family  motive  gives  the  strongest  impul 
sion  toward  industry,  frugality,  and  disinterested 
ness.  It  is  ultimately  for  the  family  that  most 
men  and  women  struggle  and  labor  all  their  lives. 
It  is  on  the  family,  and  not  on  the  individual  that 
states  are  built.  It  is  the  family  virtues  which 
make  commonwealths  possible.  The  transmission 
of  property,  therefore,  from  father  or  mother  to 
children  has  always  been  safeguarded  in  every  civ 
ilized  community.  It  is  a  right  quite  as  precious 
to  the  man  of  small  property  as  to  the  man  of  large 
property  —  indeed,  more  precious.  It  is  a  right 
which  everybody  is  interested  in  who  has  any  prop- 

166 


Equality  in  a  Republic 

erty  at  all,  and  any  family  at  all ;  and  though  some 
modern  states  have  ventured  to  prescribe  in  some 
respects  how  an  owner  shall  distribute  his  estate 
among  his  heirs,  no  state  has  ever  ventured  to 
deny  or  abolish  this  right  of  distribution.  It  is 
one  of  the  elements  of  our  republican  freedom  in 
the  United  States  that  wills  are  subjected  to  much 
fewer  restraints  and  limitations  than  they  are  in 
most  European  countries,  and  this  freedom  tends 
strongly  to  the  distribution  of  properties  at  death. 

We  have  seen  during  the  last  forty  years  in  the 
United  States  the  development  of  a  disposition 
among  rich  people  to  tie  up  their  estates  in  trust, 
in  order  to  hold  the  properties  together  for  the 
common  benefit  of  descendants,  and  to  prevent 
their  being  wasted  by  youthful  or  unintelligent 
heirs. 

Whether  this  process  be  socially  mischievous, 
or  not,  has  not  yet  been  determined  by  experi 
ence.  If  it  prove  to  be  injurious,  it  can  easily  be 
checked  by  legislation.  In  the  meantime,  there  are 
two  methods  in  use  for  securing  public  benefits 
from  great  private  properties.  The  first  is  the 
voluntary  method  of  public  benefaction  which 
many  rich  Americans  adopt;  the  second  is  the 
succession  tax,  which  appropriates  for  the  public 
benefit  a  percentage  of  all  estates  which  rise  above 
a  very  moderate  limit — a  percentage  which  is  small 
on  lineal  inheritances  and  larger  on  collateral  in 
heritances.  Succession  taxes  are  on  the  whole  far 
the  most  desirable  form  of  taxation  on  personal 
property;  for  they  have  the  advantage  of  being 

167 


Equality  in  a  Republic 

levied  within  a  moderate  number  of  years  on  all 
the  personal  property  in  the  community. 

It  being  thus  clear  that  individual  liberty  in  a 
free  state  must  lead  to  inequality  of  possessions,  it 
remains  to  ask:  Is  this  condition  of  things  to  be 
regretted?  Is  it  desirable  that  conditions  as  re 
gards  property  should  be  equal  ?  All  the  analogies 
of  nature  and  all  human  experience  seem  to  me  to 
indicate  that  a  society  in  which  there  were  no  vari 
eties  of  condition  would  be  unnatural,  monotonous, 
stupid,  and  unprogressive.  Civilization  means  in 
finite  differentiation  under  liberty.  An  interesting 
human  society  must  include  individuals  of  very 
various  gifts  and  powers.  If  all  women  were  equally 
beautiful,  the  race  would  hardly  know  what  beauty 
was.  If  no  man  could  be  more  judicious,  inventive, 
or  far-seeing  than  another,  progress  would  be  im 
possible.  Society  would  be  as  dull  as  a  prairie  or 
an  ocean  would  be,  if  it  were  left  without  the  at 
mospheric  changes  which  give  variety  to  such  mo 
notonous  plains. 

Let  us  then  distinctly  abandon  equality  of  pos 
sessions  as  one  of  the  objects  which  republican 
institutions  aim  at,  and  let  us  substitute  for  this 
foreign  conception  the  object  expressed  in  the  word 
unity.  Social  unity  is  consistent  with  great  social 
diversities.  "  There  are  diversities  of  gifts ;  but  the 
same  spirit."  Let  us  substitute  for  the  French 
motto,  "  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity,"  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  motto — "Freedom,  Unity,  Brotherhood." 
Those  three  ideas  go  well  together,  and  express 
a  lofty  and  practicable  social  aim.  The  fate  of 

1 68 


Equality  in  a  Republic 

free  institutions  is  not  to  be  settled  on  any  issue 
of  poverty  or  wealth.  It  is  their  effect  on  public 
health  —  physical  and  moral  —  which  is  to  deter 
mine  their  destiny.  Eepublicans  may  be  either 
rich  or  poor,  with  safety  to  the  State;  but  they 
cannot  be  corrupt  in  body  or  soul  without  bring 
ing  the  republic  to  its  fall. 


ONE  REMEDY  FOR  MUNICIPAL 
MISGOVERNMENT 

PUBLISHED  IN  THE  "  FORUM,"  OCTOBER,  1891 


ONE   REMEDY  FOR    MUNICIPAL 
MISGOVERNMENT 


IN  these  days,  when  so  many  sanguine  philan 
thropists  are  advocating  large  extensions  of 
governmental  activity,  and  indeed  are  hoping  for 
a  beneficent  reorganization  of  society,  in  which 
popular  governments  shall  plan,  order,  make,  store, 
and  distribute  everything,  — all  without  unduly 
abridging  individual  liberty, —  it  may  be  whole 
some  to  discuss  sometimes  the  practical  short 
comings  of  democratic  government  within  its  pres 
ent  rather  limited  field.  Before  we  take  courage 
to  believe  that  governmental  management  would 
be  successful  in  many  new  fields  and  on  a  much 
larger  scale,  we  ought  to  be  satisfied  with  the 
results  of  that  management  within  its  actual  prov 
ince.  It  is  more  instructive  to  discuss  shortcom 
ings  close  at  hand  than  those  remote,  and  evils  right 
under  the  eyes  of  the  people  than  those  they  can 
hardly  discern.  To  discuss  the  evils  which  attend 
municipal  government  is,  therefore,  more  edifying 
than  to  consider  the  evils  of  the  national  and  state 
administrations. 

173 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

In  peaceful  times  the  national  government  is  re 
mote  from  the  daily  life  of  the  average  citizen.  Its 
wastefulness  does  not  come  home  to  him.  Its  cor 
rupting  patronage  and  jobbery  are  unperceived  by 
him.  Errors  in  the  financial  policy  of  the  govern 
ment  become  plain  to  him  only  when  he  experi 
ences  their  ill  effects.  The  post-office  is  the  only 
function  of  the  national  government  which  con 
cerns  him  intimately,  and  that  function  is  really  a 
simple  business,  and  has  always  been  a  government 
monopoly;  so  that  the  average  citizen  who  gets 
his  mail  with  tolerable  regularity,  and  has  no  ex 
perience  of  any  other  method  of  sending  letters 
and  newspapers,  generally  thinks  that  the  post- 
office  business  is  as  well  done  by  government  as  it 
could  be  by  any  agency.  Municipal  functions,  on 
the  other  hand,  touch  the  average  citizen  very 
nearly.  It  makes  a  great  difference  to  him  whether 
the  city  keeps  good  schools  or  bad,  and  clean 
streets  or  dirty,  supplies  him  with  pure  or  impure 
water,  and  taxes  him  fairly  or  unfairly.  Moreover, 
all  critics  of  the  working  of  the  institutions  of 
the  United  States  during  the  last  fifty  years — 
whether  friendly  or  hostile,  whether  foreign  or 
native  —  agree  that  municipal  government  has 
been  the  field  in  which  the  least  efficiency  for 
good  has  been  exhibited  and  the  greatest  posi 
tive  evils  have  been  developed.  To  what  causes 
the  existing  evils  of  municipal  government  in  the 
United  States  are  to  be  ascribed,  and  in  what  di 
rection  the  remedies  are  to  be  sought,  are,  there 
fore,  questions  of  the  profoundest  interest  for  the 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

average  citizen,  as  well  as  for  the  social  philosopher. 
It  is  easy  to  attribute  these  evils  to  the  inherent 
viciousness  and  recklessness  of  the  urban  popula 
tion —  wickedness  and  folly  which  are  more  and 
more  effective  for  evil  as  the  proportion  of  urban 
to  rural  population  rises.  It  is  easy  for  people 
whose  forefathers  came  to  this  western  world  one 
or  more  generations  ago  to  believe  that  the  people 
who  have  just  come  are  the  source  of  all  municipal 
woes.  But  neither  of  these  explanations  can  be 
accepted  as  probable  or  reasonable.  When  we  ex 
amine  the  working  of  the  American  democracy 
on  the  greatest  state  questions, —  such  as  inde 
pendence  of  Great  Britain,  the  federation  of  the 
States,  and  the  indissoluble  union  of  the  States, 
—  we  find  that  the  democracy  has  deali  wisely 
with  these  great  questions,  and.  just  as  wisely  in 
the  generation  of  1860-90  as  Jin  the  generations 
of  Revolutionary  times.  We  observe  that,  in  the 
management  of  a  great  national  debt,  our  democ 
racy  has  exhibited  better  judgment,  and,  on  the 
whole,  juster  sentiments,  than  any  oligarchy  or 
tyranny  has  ever  exhibited.  We  see  that  private 
property  is  more  secure  under  the  democratic  form 
of  government  than  under  any  other  form.  We 
find  that  there  has  been  an  unequaled  amount  of 
diffused  intellectual  and  moral  energy  among  the 
mass  of  the  people  during  the  last  forty  years ;  and 
we  are  sure  that  the  democratic  form  of  govern 
ment,  working  in  combination  with  democratic 
social  mobility,  is  eminently  favorable  to  religious, 
social,  and  industrial  progress.  Into  the  immense 

175 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

material  development  of  the  period  since  the  civil 
war  there  has  gone  a  deal  of  sound  moral  force  as 
well  as  of  mental  and  physical  activity.  The  cen 
sus  teaches  us  that  the  proportion  of  the  urban  to 
the  rural  population  has  rapidly  increased  during 
the  last  thirty  years;  but  these  new  city  people 
have  all  come  in  from  the  country.  During  this 
same  period,  rural  town  governments  have  fully 
maintained  their  excellence,  and  have  in  many 
States  exhibited  a  new  efficiency  and  enterprise; 
as,  for  example,  in  the  development  of  primary  and 
secondary  education,  the  maintenance  of  free  libra 
ries,  the  restriction  of  the  liquor  traffic,  and  the 
improvement  of  bridges  and  highways.  I  submit, 
therefore,  that  there  is  no  good  reason  to  believe 
in  any  wide-spread  and  progressive  demoralization 
of  the  mass  of  the  population,  whether  urban  or 
rural.  I  would  not  be  understood,  however,  to 
maintain  that  there  have  not -been  particular  spots 
or  particular  occasions,  some  of  them  conspicuous, 
where  failure  and  disgrace  have  resulted  from 
moral  causes;  such  as  indifference  on  the  part  of 
voters  to  the  bad  character  of  the  men  they  voted 
for ;  the  corrupt  procuring  of  votes  in  return  for 
appointments,  licenses,  or  tariffs ;  or  the  importa 
tion  into  municipal  affairs  of  passions  aroused  in 
national  party  strife.  My  contention  is,  that,  in 
spite  of  these  manifestations,  there  is  no  good 
reason  to  believe  that  American  constituencies, 
whether  large  or  small,  have  frequently  been  dis 
honest  or  corrupt  at  heart,  although  they  have 
sometimes  chosen  dishonest  or  corrupt  agents. 

176 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment ' 

The  theory  that  the  immigration  of  a  few  mil 
lions  of  foreigners  within  thirty  years  is  the  true 
cause  of  municipal  evils  in  the  United  States  must 
also  be  rejected,  although  the  too  quick  admission 
to  the  suffrage  of  men  who  have  had  no  acquaint 
ance  with  free  institutions  has  doubtless  increased 
the  evils  of  city  government  in  a  few  localities. 
The  great  majority  of  the  immigrants  have  been 
serviceable  people ;  and  of  late  years  many  of  them 
—  particularly  the  Germans,  English,  Scotch,  Scan 
dinavians,  and  Swiss  —  have  had  a  better  educa 
tion  than  the  average  rural  American  can  obtain. 
The  experienced  voters  of  the  country  cannot 
shelter  themselves  behind  the  comparatively  small 
contingent  of  the  inexperienced,  particularly  when 
the  former  are  wholly  responsible  for  admitting 
the  latter  to  the  suffrage. 

I  venture  to  suggest  in  this  paper  another  ex 
planation  (a  partial  one,  to  be  sure)  of  the  compar 
ative  failure  of  municipal  government  in  the  United 
States — an  explanation  which  points  to  a  remedy. 

It  is  observable  that  the  failures_of  the  d.emo- 
cratic  form  of  government  have  occurred  chiefly 
irilEbse  matters  of  municipal  acl  ministration  which 
present  many  novelties,  and  belong  to  the  domaitL 
of  applied  science :  such  as  the  levying  of  taxes ; 
the  manage ment  of  water-supplies  and  drainage 
systems;  the  paving,  lighting,  and  cleaning  of 
highways;  the  control  of  companies  which  sell  in 
city  streets  light,  heat,  power,  transportation  for 
persons,  and  communication  by  electricity;  the 
care  of  the  public  health;  and  the  provision  of 

,77 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovermnent 

proper  means  of  public  enjoyment,  such  as  open 
squares,  gardens,  and  parks.  All  these  matters  re 
quire  for  their  comprehension  and  proper  manage 
ment  a  high  degree  of  scientific  training,  and  all 
of  them  require  the  continuous  execution,  through 
many  years,  of  far-reaching  plans.  I  proceed  to 
consider  each  of  the  topics  I  have  mentioned,  with 
the  intention  of  showing  that  antiquated  methods 
of  municipal  administration,  and  particularly  short 
and  insecure  tenures  for  the  heads  of  departments, 
are  responsible  for  the  greater  part  of  the  munici 
pal  evils  which  are  bringing  discredit  on  free  in 
stitutions,  and  that  the  altered  nature  and  condi 
tions  of  municipal  business  require  that  these  old 
methods,  which  answered  very  well  in  earlier  times, 
be  fundamentally  reformed. 

In  the  course  of  this  rapid  sketch  it  will  appear 
at  various  points  that  the  monarchical  and  aristo 
cratic  governments  of  Europe  have  grappled  with 
modern  municipal  problems  much  more  success 
fully  than  our  democratic  government.  The  dis 
cussion  will,  I  think,  suggest  that  explanations  of 
this  result,  so  unsatisfactory  to  lovers  of  liberty, 
are  to  be  found  in  the  slowness  of  a  democracy  to 
change  governmental  methods,  and  in  the  compar 
atively  small  and  temporary  influence  of  political 
and  administrative  leaders  under  a  form  of  gov 
ernment  which  makes  frequent  appeal  to  universal 
suffrage. 

I  begin  with  the  levying  of  municipal  taxes. 
One  of  the  greatest  mischiefs  in  American  munici 
pal  government  is  the  system  of  local  taxation; 

178 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

for  this  system  is,  in  many  places,  an  effective 
school  in  evasion  and  perjury,  and,  as  a  rule,  an 
agency  of  stinging  injustice.  The  trouble  is  two 
fold. 

In  the  first  place,  the  incidence  of  taxes  is  one  of 
the  most  difficult  subjects  in  political  economy, 
and  very  few  American  legislators  know  anything 
about  it.  More  than  that,  very  few  Americans  in 
any  profession  or  walk  of  life  know  anything  about 
it.  The  colleges  and  universities  of  the  country 
are  greatly  to  blame  for  this  condition  of  things. 
They  never  began  to  teach  political  science  in  any 
serious  way  till  about  twenty  years  ago.  The  gen 
eration  of  men  now  in  their  prime  either  never 
studied  any  political  economy  at  all,  or  studied  it 
in  one  small  text-book  for  a  few  hours  a  week  for 
perhaps  half  a  year,  at  school  or  college ;  or  they 
picked  up  a  few  notions  about  it  in  the  intervals 
of  professional  or  business  occupation  after  they 
had  entered  upon  their  life-work.  The  number  of 
living  Americans  who  have  any  thorough  and  sys 
tematic  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  political 
economy,  including  the  incidence  of  taxes,  is  ab 
solutely  insignificant;  and  these  few  are  mostly 
either  professors,  or  business-men  who  have  been 
also  life-long  students.  The  average  business-man 
and  the  average  professional  man  have  never  given 
any  attention  to  the  science,  except  perhaps  to 
some  little  scrap  of  it,  like  the  doctrine  of  pro 
tection,  which  has  temporarily  had  some  political 
interest. 

Secondly,  the  forms  of  property  have  changed  so 

179 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

prodigiously  within  forty  years,  that  a  theory  of 
assessment  which  worked  reasonably  well  before 
1850  has  become  thoroughly  mischievous  in  1890. 
The  old  theory  of  taxation  was,  that  every  man 
should  be  assessed  at  his  home  on  all  his  property. 
It  was  all  there,  or  it  returned  thither  periodically, 
like  his  ox-cart  or  his  vessel.  If,  by  rare  chance,  a 
man  had  property  out  of  the  town  where  he  lived, 
it  was  a  piece  of  real  estate,  which  was  to  be  as 
sessed  for  taxes  in  the  town  where  it  lay,  and  there 
only.  Nowadays  in  cities  this  is  all  changed.  In 
the  country  and  in  remote  communities  by  the  sea, 
the  lakes,  and  the  rivers,  the  old  forms  of  property 
— namely,  lands,  buildings,  implements,  live-stock, 
carriages,  and  vessels — remain  the  same  that  they 
were  fifty  years  ago,  and  in  such  communities  there 
is  no  difficulty  about  the  assessment  and  incidence 
of  taxes;  but  in  all  the  urban  populations  there 
are  innumerable  forms  of  property  which  are  of 
very  recent  creation.  The  various  bonds  of  rail 
road,  telegraph,  telephone,  land  and  bridge  compa 
nies — which  are  a  kind  of  preferred  stock,  without 
any  liability  or  any  voting-power — have  been  al 
most  entirely  created  within  thirty  years.  The 
English  statute  which  provides  for  incorporation 
with  limited  liability  dates  only  from  the  year 
1855.  The  innumerable  stocks  of  transportation, 
financial,  and  manufacturing  companies  have  al 
most  all  been  created  since  the  present  type  of 
American  municipality  was  established.  The  his 
tory  of  Harvard  University,  like  that  of  any  old 
institution,  illustrates  the  newness  of  these  forms 

1 80 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

of  property  which  have  become  so  common.  In 
1860  only  two  per  cent,  of  the  quick  capital  of 
Harvard  University  was  in  railroad  stocks  and 
bonds;  now  fifty  per  cent,  is  so  invested.  If  we 
go  back  in  the  history  of  the  university  thirty 
years  more,  to  the  year  1830,  we  find  that  the  uni 
versity  owned  neither  stock  nor  bond,  except  fifty- 
two  shares  in  a  Boston  bank,  one  share  in  a  local 
canal,  and  certain  interests  in  three  wooden  bridges 
leading  out  of  Boston.  Legislators,  assessors,  and 
voters  have  been  quite  unable  to  grasp  the  new 
situation  so  suddenly  created.  They  have  been 
unable  to  master  quickly  enough  the  new  condi 
tions.  The  conservatism  of  a  democracy  is  intense, 
partly  because  the  average  voter  is  afraid  of  ad 
ministrative  novelties,  and  partly  because  inexpe-  \ 
rienced  officials  necessarily  follow  precedent.  The 
more  rapid  the  change  of  officials,  the  more  surely 
will  this  unreasoning  following  of  precedent  pre 
vail.  A  new  official  is  afraid  to  depart  from  cus 
tom,  lest  he  fall  into  some  dangerous  or  absurd 
difficulty.  Yet  to  follow  precedent  when  condi 
tions  have  changed  is  the  surest  way  to  fall  into 
both  absurdity  and  danger.  Clinging  to  the  old 
theory  that  a  man  was  to  be  taxed  at  the  place  of 
his  residence  on  all  of  his  property, —  a  perfectly 
good  theory  under  former  conditions,  and,  indeed, 
under  present  conditions  among  a  rural  popula 
tion, — American  legislators  and  assessors  have  en-j 
deavored  to  tax  at  the  place  of  residence  property 
which  did  not  lie  there,  never  returned  thither,  and 
was  wholly  invisible  there.  Hence  all  the  inquisi- 

12* 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

torial  methods  of  assessment  which  disgrace  the 
American  cities. 

At  present,  in  many  States  of  the  Union  the  at 
tempt  is  made  to  tax  the  house  and  the  mortgage 
on  it,  the  merchant's  stock  and  the  note  he  gave 
for  the  money  with  which  he  bought  it,  a  railroad 
and  the  bonds  which  built  it.  So  far  as  this 
method  is  successful,  it  falsifies  the  total  valua 
tion  of  the  country,  and  produces  inequality  and 
injustice  in  the  distribution  of  the  public  burdens. 
So  far  as  it  is  unsuccessful,  it  causes  another  kind 
of  injustice,  excites  suspicions  and  enmities  among 
neighbors,  and  dulls  the  public  conscience.  These 
grave  evils  take  effect,  for  the  most  part,  in  urban 
communities,  and  there  work  their  most  serious 
mischiefs.  Yet  they  result  from  popular  persist 
ence  in  a  theory  which  was  perfectly  good  no 
long  time  ago,  and  from  the  inability  of  ill-trained 
and  often-changed  officials  to  adapt  public  policy 
quickly  to  new  conditions  of  finance  and  trade 
very  suddenly  created.  To  deal  wisely  with  pub 
lic  taxation  in  the  face  of  rapid  and  progressive 
changes  in  business  and  social  conditions  requires 
on  the  part  of  the  tax  officials  exact  knowledge, 
sound  judgment,  wide  experience,  and  continuous 
service :  in  short,  it  requires  highly  trained  experts, 
serving  the  public  on  independent  tenures,  for 
long  terms. 

The  management  of  water-supplies  and  drainage 
systems  is  another  municipal  function  which  is  of 
recent  growth  and  of  a  highly  scientific  character. 
As  a  regular  part  of  city  business  it  has  all  been 

182 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

created  within  fifty  years.  I  was  brought  up  in 
one  of  the  best  built  houses  in  Boston,  situated 
near  the  top  of  Beacon  Hill.  The  house-drainage 
was  discharged  into  a  cesspool  in  the  rear  of  the 
lot,  and  the  whole  family  drank  the  water  from  a 
deep  well  which  was  not  more  than  fifty  feet  from 
the  cesspool.  Moreover,  five  private  stables  stood 
near  the  rear  of  the  lot,  all  of  them  but  a  short 
distance  from  the  well;  and  the  natural  slope  of 
the  land  was  from  the  stables  and  the  cesspool 
toward  the  well.  There  was  at  that  time  no  sew 
erage  system  in  the  city  of  Boston  and  no  public 
water-supply. 

The  mayor  of  Boston  is  elected  to-day  in  the 
same  way  and  for  the  same  term  as  in  those  not 
remote  times;  but  his  functions  and  the  whole 
municipal  business  which  he  superintends  have 
utterly  changed.  I  need  not  say  that  the  provi 
sion  of  adequate  supplies  of  wholesome  water  in  a 
large  city  is  a  work  of  great  and  increasing  diffi 
culty,  which  can  be  successfully  managed  only  by 
men  who  have  received  an  elaborate  training,  and 
have  labored  for  years  continuously  in  that  one 
field.  The  difficult  subjects  of  average  annual 
precipitation,  natural  watersheds,  prevention  of 
pollution,  and  effective  distribution,  will  always 
task  the  full  powers  of  gifted  men  who  have  re 
ceived  the  best  possible  training.  Continuity  of 
policy  is  of  great  importance  in  regard  to  the  water- 
supply  of  any  large  population.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  the  related  problem  of  sewerage.  The  dis 
position  of  the  fluid  and  semi-fluid  refuse  of  cities 

183 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

is  an  engineering  problem  which  presents  great 
variety  in  different  localities,  and  almost  always 
great  difficulty.  In  our  expanding  cities  the  mo 
ment  one  difficulty  or  danger  is  overcome,  another 
presents  itself.  The  planning  of  sewerage  works 
preeminently  requires  foresight ;  and  durability  is 
always  a  primary  merit  in  their  construction.  That 
the  water-works  and  sewerage  system  of  a  great 
municipality  should  be  under  the  charge  of  con 
stantly  shifting  officials  is  irrational  to  the  last 
degree.  The  forms  and  methods  of  our  city  gov- 
i  ernments  were  determined  when  no  such  problems 
were  to  be  solved  by  city  agents. 

I  turn  next  to  the  care  of  highways,  including 
paving,  lighting,  and  cleaning.  It  is  unnecessary 
to  dilate  upon  the  intelligence  and  skill  which  are 
needed  in  modern  cities  for  the  right  conduct  of 
this  department  of  the  public  work.  The  services 
of  engineers  of  the  highest  intelligence  and  skill, 
and  of  the  highest  professional  honor  and  business 
capacity,  are  constantly  required.  In  the  great 
European  capitals,  these  departments  of  municipal 
service  are  admirably  managed  by  men  trained,  in 
schools  long  famous,  expressly  for  the  planning  and 
direction  of  such  public  works,  and  kept  in  service, 
like  officers  of  the  army  and  navy,  during  good  be 
havior  and  efficiency.  There  is  not  a  great  capital 
in  Europe  —  I  had  almost  said  there  is  not  even  a 
small  city — which  does  not  immeasurably  excel  in 
the  care  of  its  highways  the  best  governed  of 
American  cities.  The  monarchical  and  bureau 
cratic  governments  of  Europe  see  to  it  that  city 

184 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

streets  and  country  highways  are  smooth,  hard,  and 
clean.  The  streets  of  European  capitals,  and  their 
public  squares,  are  incessantly  swept  and  washed, 
and  all  rubbish,  manure,  and  offal  are  promptly  re 
moved;  but  in  most  American  cities  the  manure 
of  animals,  the  sputa  of  human  beings,  and  much 
other  vegetable  and  animal  refuse  are  suffered  to 
dry  up,  and  blow  about  as  dust.  The  footways  in 
American  cities  are  as  inferior  to  those  of  foreign 
cities  as  the  carriage-ways,  in  respect  to  conven 
ience  and  cleanliness,  except,  indeed,  that  there  are 
some  portions  of  the  oldest  European  cities  in  which 
originally  no  footways  were  provided.  Spain  is 
not  considered  a  particularly  clean  country;  but 
I  remember  sitting  down  in  a  small  public  square 
in  Seville  to  eat  an  orange,  and  so  absolutely  tidy 
was  the  inclosure  that  I  could  see  no  place  where 
it  was  possible  to  leave  the  skin  of  the  orange,  and 
I  had  to  carry  it  away  with  me.  The  inferiority  of 
American  cities  in  this  respect  is  not  due  to  lack 
of  sufficient  expenditure  on  the  highways:  it  is  due 
primarily  to  the  fact  that  competent  experts  are 
not  steadily  employed  to  direct  this  important 
branch  of  municipal  business,  and,  secondarily,  to 
a  flood  of  abuses  which  become  possible  in  the  ab 
sence  of  competent  and  honest  supervision.  There 
is  no  point  at  which  municipal  government  in  the 
United  States  has  been  so  complete  a  failure  as 
here.  It  has  disastrously  failed  to  provide  for  the 
convenience  and  comfort  of  the  people  in  a  matter 
which  seriously  affects  the  daily  well-being  of  every 
inhabitant. 

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One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovemment 

I  speak  next  of  an  important  municipal  function 
which  is  of  very  recent  origin,  which,  indeed,  has 
hardly  as  yet  been  developed  at  all ;  namely,  the 
control  in  the  public  interest  of  the  companies 
which  sell  light,  heat,  power,  transportation,  and 
telegraphic  or  telephonic  communication.  The 
value  of  these  franchises  has  only  recently  been 
demonstrated ;  and  the  many  ways  in  which  these 
companies  may  affect  the  business  interests,  and 
the  comfort,  health,  and  pleasure  of  a  compact 
community,  are  not  yet  fully  developed.  The  in 
troduction  of  electricity  for  all  these  purposes, 
except  heating,  has  very  recently  greatly  modified 
the  methods  of  the  purveying  corporations.  Not  a 
single  American  city  has  succeeded  in  dealing  with 
these  serviceable  monopolies  justly  and  at  the  same 
time  to  the  public  advantage;  and,  so  long  as  the 
present  modes  of  electing  and  organizing  a  muni 
cipal  government  continue  in  this  country,  we  may 
well  despair  of  seeing  any  effective  control  over 
these  corporations  exercised  in  the  public  interest^ 
They  are  controlled  in  Europe  by  skilful  engineers 
whose  duty  is  to  the  public,  and  whose  authority 
is  exercised  steadily  and  independently.  This 
grave  municipal  problem  is,  however,  very  new. 
It  is  only  about  forty  years  since  the  first  street- 
railways  were  built  in  the  United  States;  the 
telephone  seems  to  many  of  us  a  thing  of  yes 
terday  ;  and  the  introduction  of  electric  lights  and 
electric  cars  is  quite  within  the  memory  of  children 
still  in  school.  Within  five  years  a  wholly  new 
class  of  municipal  difficulties  has  arisen  from  the 

1 86 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

multiplication  of  overhead  wires,  for  all  sorts  of 
purposes,  along  and  across  the  public  highways. 
How  absurd  it  is  to  expect  an  effective  discharge 
of  supervisory  functions  over  these  novel  and  en 
terprising  corporations,  which  are  eagerly  pursuing 
their  private  interests,  from  city  officials  who  are 
elected  by  universal  suffrage  once  a  year  or  once  in 
two  years,  or  who  depend  for  their  positions  on  the  ; 
single  will  of  an  official  so  elected ! 

One  would  imagine,  a  priori,  that  a  "  government 
by  the  people,  for  the  people,"  would  always  have 
been  careful  of  the  people's  health;  but  here  we 
come  upon  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  failures  of 
free  institutions  in  urban  populations.  Democratic 
government  is  at  present  at  a  serious  disadvan 
tage,  in  comparison  with  aristocratic  and  monarchi 
cal  governments,  as  regards  the  care  of  the  public 
health.  The  evidence  of  that  disadvantage  is  of  two 
sorts.  In  the  first  place,  there  are  several  cities  in 
the  United  States  which  already,  in  spite  of  their 
comparative  newness,  have  a  death-rate  absolutely 
higher  than  that  of  the  best  conducted  cities  of 
Europe.  London,  with  its  six  millions  of  people, 
has  habitually  a  lower  death-rate  than  Boston, 
New  York,  Brooklyn,  or  Chicago.  A  few  facts 
must  suffice  to  illustrate  this  point.  In  the  third 
quarter  of  1889,  the  summer  quarter,  Chicago,  Bos 
ton,  and  New  York  had  a  higher  death-rate  than 
Rome,  Milan,  and  Turin,  in  hot  Italy.  In  the 
fourth  quarter,  Chicago  had  a  higher  death-rate 
than  Copenhagen,  Christiania,  Prague,  Hamburg, 
Bremen,  Cologne,  Dresden,  Leipsic,  Berlin,  Lyons, 

187 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

Amsterdam,  Edinburgh,  Sheffield,  Birmingham, 
Liverpool,  or  London.  In  the  first  quarter  of  1890, 
the  death-rate  in  New  York  was  a  little  higher 
than  the  mean  rate  in  the  twenty-eight  great  Eng 
lish  towns,  including  London,  some  of  those  great 
towns  being  confessedly  in  habitually  bad  sanitary 
condition.  The  population  of  New  York  is  about 
equal  to  that  of  Berlin.  In  the  first  quarter  of 
1890,  the  deaths  in  New  York  were  at  the  annual 
rate  of  28.8  persons  in  every  1000,  against  23.3  in 
Berlin  —  a  fact  which  means  that  in  those  three 
months  2600  persons  more  died  in  New  York  than 
in  Berlin,  although  New  York  has  great  advantages 
over  Berlin  as  regards  both  climate  and  situation. 
In  the  fourth  quarter  of  1890,  the  death-rate  in 
New  York  and  Brooklyn  was  higher  than  in  Berlin 
by  more  than  3  in  1000.  In  the  second  place,  in 
those  American  cities  which  have  made  some  effort 
to  preserve  the  public  health  and  to  lower  the 
death-rate,  no  such  success  has  rewarded  the  effort 
as  in  many  European  cities,  although  the  newness 
of  most  American  cities  should  give  them  a  great 
advantage  over  the  European.  London,  which  is 
supposed  to  contain  in  East  London  the  largest 
mass  of  human  misery  in  the  civilized  world,  is  the 
best  example  in  the  world  of  sanitary  success. 
Berlin  is  another  striking  example  of  sanitary  suc 
cess  under  extremely  unfavorable  conditions.  Be 
fore  1871  the  annual  death-rate  in  Berlin  had  for 
thirty  years  been  from  37  to  39  per  1000.  Of  late 
years,  21  to  23  per  1000  have  been  common  rates 
—  an  immense  annual  saving  of  life,  which  is 

1 88 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

chiefly  due  to  the  construction  of  a  good  water- 
supply  and  a  good  sewerage  system.  The  worst 
district  of  Glasgow  —  No.  14,  a  physical  and  moral 
plague-spot  —  had  in  1871  a  population  of  14,000 
and  a  death-rate  of  42.3  per  1000 ;  in  1881  a  popu 
lation  of  about  8000  and  a  death-rate  of  38.3 ;  in 
1888  a  population  of  about  7000  and  a  death-rate 
of  32.45.  No  American  city  has  obtained  sanitary 
successes  like  these.  Boston  among  cities,  and 
Massachusetts  among  States,  have  taken  as  much 
pains  in  sanitary  matters  as  any  American  com 
munities,  yet  the  death-rate  has  not  been  reduced 
during  the  past  twenty-five  years,  either  in  the 
city  or  in  the  State  at  large.  How  much  saving  of 
life  is  possible  under  favorable  conditions  may  be 
inferred  from  two  comparisons.  In  the  year  1888, 
the  death-rate  in  Boston  was  24.57  per  1000:  in 
the  adjoining,  or  rather  interjected,  town  of  Brook- 
line,  it  was  11.43.  In  urban  England,  the  death- 
rate  during  the  last  quarter  of  1890  was  21.2  per 
1000 :  among  the  remaining  population,  it  was  17.5 
per  1000. 

What  are  the  reasons  of  the  comparative  ineffi 
ciency  of  democratic  government  in  the  care  of  the 
public  health  ?  I  maintain  that  they  are  not  vice 
and  criminal  negligence,  but  ignorance  and  un 
wisdom.  Is  it  not  obvious  that  the  care  of  the 
public  health  requires  a  high  degree  of  intelligence 
and  of  scientific  training  in  the  officers  who  have 
charge  of  it,  and  that  our  system  of  municipal  ad 
ministration  almost  precludes  the  employment  of 
such  competent  officers?  Preventive  medicine  is 

189 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

a  comparatively  new  science,  and  it  has  been  more 
effectively  cultivated  in  Europe  than  in  this  coun 
try,  partly  because  the  methods  of  municipal  ad 
ministration  which  there  prevail  give  a  chance  for 
putting  its  principles  into  practice  which  American 
methods  have  not  given.  In  its  respect  for  per 
sonal  liberty  and  the  rights  of  the  individual, 
democracy  lets  ignorance  and  selfishness  poison 
water-supplies  with  fecal  matter,  distribute  milk 
infected  with  diphtheria,  scarlet-fever,  or  tubercu 
losis,  and  spread  contagious  diseases  by  omit 
ting  the  precautions  of  isolation  and  disinfection. 
Clearly,  this  feebleness  of  democracy  is  largely  due 
to  ignorance.  Aristocratic  and  autocratic  govern 
ments  have  learned  quicker  than  democracies  the 
economic  and  humane  value  of  sanitary  science, 
and  have  applied  that  science  more  promptly  and 
efficiently.  If  the  sufferings  inflicted  on  the  poorer 
and  less  intelligent  portions  of  the  community,  and 
the  economic  losses  inflicted  on  the  whole  commu 
nity,  by  incompetent  practitioners  of  medicine  and 
surgery,  could  be  brought  home  to  American  leg 
islators,  the  quacks  and  charlatans  would  have 
short  shrift,  in  spite  of  the  inevitable  interference 
with  so-called  private  rights.  Eegistration  acts  for 
practitioners  of  medicine  would  then  be  promptly 
passed,  and  vigorously  enforced.  In  like  manner, 
if  a  democracy  were  only  persuaded  that  contagious 
diseases  —  like  yellow  fever,  small-pox,  and  diph 
theria —  might  be  closely  restricted  by  isolation, 
the  present  careless  methods  of  dealing  with  these 
scourges  would  soon  be  as  obsolete  as  surgery  and 

190 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

midwifery  without  antiseptics.  The  multitude  does 
not  know  how  typhoid  fever  lurks  in  contaminated 
water ;  it  does  not  comprehend  either  the  suffering 
or  the  economic  loss  which  inevitably  falls  on  any 
population  breathing  polluted  air,  or  drinking  pol 
luted  water ;  it  does  not  realize  that  public  health 
is  only  the  sum-total  of  the  individual  healths,  and 
that  every  avoidable  injury  to  the  public  health 
means  individual  sufferings  and  losses  which  need 
not  have  been  incurred.  A  few  American  States 
and  cities  have  made  some  progress  in  the  care  of 
the  public  health ;  but  the  good  work  has  been 
done  chiefly  by  educated  physicians  and  engineers 
serving  gratuitously  on  boards  of  health.  Such  an 
organization  is  vastly  better  than  none;  but,  as 
the  results  show,  it  is  less  efficient  than  the  steady, 
paid  service  of  such  competent  health-officers  as 
all  large  European  communities  nowadays  employ. 
Again,  we  see  that  this  recently  created  but  impor 
tant  municipal  function  requires  experts  for  its 
satisfactory  performance. 

Another  matter  in  which  democratic  government 
manifests,  in  comparison  with  aristocratic  and  au 
tocratic  governments,  a  curious  neglect  of  the 
interests  of  the  masses  is  the  provision,  or  rather 
lack  of  provision,  of  parks,  gardens,  open-air  par 
lors,  and  forests  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  populace. 
This  subject  is  closely  connected  with  the  last  to 
which  I  referred  —  the  public  health.  One  would 
have  supposed  that,  before  the  urban  populations 
began  to  feel  keenly  their  deprivation  of  fresh  air 
and  rural  beauty,  liberal  reservations  of  unoccupied 

191 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

land  would  have  been  made  in  our  country  for  the 
use  of  the  public.  The  fact  is,  however,  that  Eu 
ropean  towns  and  cities,  both  large  and  small,  are 
much  better  provided  with  parks,  gardens,  small 
squares,  and  popular  open-air  resorts  of  all  kinds, 
than  American  towns  and  cities.  The  gardens, 
parks,  and  game-preserves  of  royalty  and  nobility 
have  there  been  converted,  in  many  cases,  to  pop 
ular  uses,  with  the  happiest  results.  The  largest 
and  densest  European  cities  —  London,  Vienna, 
Berlin,  and  Paris  —  are  greatly  better  off  in  this 
respect  than  any  American  city.  Even  the  least 
progressive  parts  of  Europe,  like  Spain  and  Sicily, 
surpass  the  United  States  in  making  provision  for 
the  out-of-door  enjoyments  of  crowded  populations. 
All  about  our  large  cities  and  towns  the  build 
ing-up  of  neighborhoods  once  rural  is  going  on 
with  marvelous  rapidity,  and  the  city  population 
is  progressively  excluded  from  private  properties 
long  unoccupied,  but  now  converted  into  brick 
blocks  and  wooden  villages,  mostly  offensive  to 
the  eye.  Meantime  the  municipalities  take  no 
measures  to  provide  either  small  squares  or  broad 
areas  for  the  future  use  of  the  people.1  Some  of 
the  smaller  New  England  cities  have  actually  hesi 
tated  to  accept,  or  have  even  declined,  the  gift  of 
valuable  tracts  which  public -spirited  citizens  have 
offered  them.  A  notion  has  been  spread  abroad  by 
assessors  and  frugal  citizens  who  prefer  industrial 
or  commercial  values  to  spiritual  and  aesthetic  or 
joy-giving  values,  that  any  area  exempt  from  tax- 

1  It  should  be  observed  that  this  paper  was  written  in  1891. 
192 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

ation  is  an  incubus  on  the  community;  the  fact 
being  that  the  exempted  areas  in  most  towns  and 
cities  represent,  as  a  rule,  just  those  things  which 
make  a  dense  community  worth  having  at  all, 
namely,  the  churches,  museums,  libraries,  hospitals, 
colleges,  schools,  parks,  squares,  and  commons. 
One  would  infer,  from  democratic  practice,  that  in 
democratic  theory  public  parks  and  gardens  were 
made  for  the  rich  or  the  idle,  whereas  they  are 
most  needed  by  the  laborious  and  the  poor.  The 
richer  classes  can  provide  their  own  enjoyments; 
they  can  go  to  the  country  or  the  sea  when  they 
please.  It  is  the  laboring  masses  that  need  the 
open-air  parlor,  the  city  boulevard,  and  the  coun 
try  park.  The  urban  population  in  the  United 
States  have  not  yet  grasped  these  principles ;  and 
herein  lies  one  great  difficulty  in  regard  to  good 
municipal  administration  in  this  matter.  But 
there  is  another  serious  difficulty :  the  satisfactory 
construction  and  maintenance  of  public  works  of 
this  nature  require  many  years  of  steady  work  upon 
one  plan,  and  they  require  both  artistic  and  engi 
neering  skill  in  the  officials  who  devise,  execute,  and 
maintain  such  works.  Again,  we  see  that  good 
municipal  administration  must,  in  this  department 
also,  be  in  the  hands  of  competent  experts,  and  that 
not  for  a  year  at  a  time,  but  for  long  periods. 

I  have  now  touched,  I  believe,  on  the  chief  mu 
nicipal  functions  which  have  a  distinctly  scientific 
quality.  There  remain  the  administration  of  jus 
tice,  the  protection  of  the  city  against  fire,  disorder, 
and  crime,  and  the  conduct  of  the  public  schools. 
13  193 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

Experience  has  abundantly  proved  that  indepen 
dent  and  permanent  tenures,  after  proper  periods 
of  probationary  or  subordinate  service,  are  indis 
pensable  for  the  heads  of  all  these  departments  of 
municipal  administration ;  but  these  functions  are 
less  novel  than  those  with  which  I  have  chiefly 
dealt,  although  even  in  these  departments  many 
new  questions  present  themselves  nowadays  which 
never  troubled  at  all  the  men  of  the  last  generation. 
Of  the  judicial  and  legal  departments  of  a  great 
municipality  it  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  say  more 
than  this  —  that  their  efficiency  depends  on  the 
steady  employment  of  learned,  independent,  and 
honorable  lawyers  and  judges.  Of  the  education 
department  I  can  say,  with  confidence,  that  the  wel 
fare  of  the  schools  will  always  be  best  promoted 
by  superintendents  and  teachers  who  have  been 
selected  by  a  professional  appointing  body,  proved 
in  actual  service  under  the  observation  of  compe 
tent  inspectors,  and  then  appointed  to  permanent 
places.  Academies,  endowed  schools,  and  colleges 
often  have  better  modes  of  selecting  teachers  than 
the  public  schools,  and  more  secure  tenures  of 
office.  Hence,  in  part,  the  greater  comparative 
success  of  these  institutions,  their  relative  resources 
being  considered.  It  is  interesting  to  notice  that, 
under  stress  of  great  disasters,  the  fire  department 
has  become  the  best-managed  public  organization 
in  an  American  city.  In  that  department  are  often 
found  all  the  features  of  an  efficient  service  — care 
ful  selection  of  the  members  of  the  force,  steady 
employment,  advancement  for  merit,  compensation 

194 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

for  injury,  and  a  pension  on  retirement  after  faith 
ful  service. 

I  believe  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  good 
municipal  administration  has  now  become  abso 
lutely  impossible  without  the  employment,  on  per 
manent  tenures,  of  a  large  number  of  highly  trained 
and  highly  paid  experts  in  various  arts  and  sciences 
as  directors  of  the  chief  city  departments,  and  that 
the  whole  question  of  municipal  reform  is  covered 
by  the  inquiry,  How  can  a  city  government  be 
organized  so  as  to  secure  the  services  of  these  ex 
perts  ?  "Without  attempting  to  go  into  the  details 
of  municipal  organization,  I  venture  to  indicate  the 
direction  in  which  reform  must  be  sought.  Of  late 
years  the  direction  of  reform  movements  has  been 
toward  increasing  the  responsibility  of  the  mayor, 
by  freeing  him  from  the  control  of  municipal  elec 
tive  bodies,  and  giving  him  larger  rights  of  ap 
pointing  and  dismissing  his  subordinates.  This 
method  will  succeed  only  so  far  as  it  procures  for 
the  city  independent  and  highly  trained  expert 
service.  I  do  not  see  that  it  tends  to  secure  such 
service,  unless  the  tenure  of  the  mayoralty  itself  is 
prolonged  and  the  heads  of  departments  are  made 
safe  from  arbitrary  dismissal.  On  the  whole,  there 
is  but  slight  tendency  in  the  American  cities  to 
prolong  the  period  of  service  of  mayors.  To  give 
the  mayor,  who  is  himself  a  short-term  official, 
larger  powers  of  appointment  and  dismissal,  does 
not  tend  to  secure  to  the  heads  of  departments  long 
terms  of  service.  Competent  men  will  not  leave 
their  own  business  or  the  service  of  the  numerous 

'95 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

corporations  which  give  useful  men  secure  posi 
tions,  to  accept  municipal  positions  the  tenure_of 
whichjs_np_longer,  to  say  the  least,  thanjhe  tenure 
of  the  jnayor.  The  inevitable  result  will  be  that 
the^city  will  secure  only  second-,  third-,  or  fourth- 
rate  servants.  As  a  rule,  only  incompetent  people, 
or  people  out  of  work,  or  adventurers,  will  accept 
casual  employment.  I  belieye__that_all  reform  ef 
forts  ought  to  be  primarily  directed  to  the  means 
~oT  procuring;  under  democratic  government  as  un 
der  aristocratic  or  autocratic  government,  honest, 
highly  trained,  and  well-paid  permanent  officials. 
The  intelligent  American  closely  resembles  the  in 
telligent  European  in  preferring  an  independent 
and  permanent  position.  He  will  always  accept 
lower  pay  for  a  steady  job.  He  will  always  prefer, 
when  he  has  passed  the  speculative  and  adventur 
ous  age,  a  moderately  paid  position  with  which  go 
public  consideration  and  a  prospect  of  steady  use 
fulness,  to  higher  paid  but  insecure  positions.  The 
)  method  of  employing  competent  persons  in  per 
manent  positions  is  also  more  economical  than 
any  other:  it  procures  more  service,  and  more 
faithful  and  interested  service,  than  any  other 
method.  The  experience  of  many  American  cor 
porations  illustrates  this  fact.  In  the  service  of 
banks,  trust  companies,  insurance  companies,  rail 
roads,  factories,  shops,  colleges,  and  hospitals,  it 
is  the  almost  universal  practice  to  retain  as  long 
as  possible  well-proved  managers,  trained  clerks, 
and  skilled  workmen.  This  policy  is,  indeed,  the 
only  profitable  policy.  In  many  towns  and  coun- 

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One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

ties,  also,  the  tenure  of  elective  offices  is  practically 
a  tenure  during  efficiency.  For  a  cure  of  the  evils 
which  now  attend  democratic  government  in  cities, 
it  is  of  the  utmost  consequence  that  the  methods 
of  municipal  service  should  be  assimilated  to  the 
methods  of  the  great  private  and  corporate  services 
which  require  intelligence,  high  training,  and  long 
experience.  The  doctrine  of  rotation  in  office  when 
applied  to  such  functions  as  I  have  been  describing 
is  simply  silly. 

I  adverted  at  the  opening  of  this  paper  to  the 
fact  that  town  governments  in  the  United  States 
have  remained  good,  down  to  the  present  day, 
through  all  the  deterioration  of  city  governments. 
The  principal  reason  for  this  fact  seems  to  be  that 
the  best  men  in  a  rural  town  can  undertake  the 
service  of  the  town  without  interfering  with  their 
regular  occupation  or  business,  and  may  derive 
from  that  service  a  convenient  addition  to  their 
ordinary  earnings.  A  selectman,  road  commis 
sioner,  or  school  commissioner  in  a  New  England 
town  has  a  position  of  respectability  and  local  in 
fluence,  with  perhaps  some  small  emolument ;  and 
he  holds  it  without  suffering  any  loss  in  his  private 
business.  In  large  cities,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
quite  impossible  for  the  chief  officials  to  attend  to 
their  private  business  and  at  the  same  time  fulfil 
their  municipal  functions.  Moreover,  city  men  of 
capacity  and  character  are  sure  to  be  absorbed  in 
their  own  affairs  so  completely  that  they  give  but 
a  reluctant  and  spasmodic  attention  to  the  business 
of  the  public.  Democratic  freedom  inevitably 
13*  197 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovernment 

tends  to  produce  this  devotion  to  their  own  affairs 
on  the  part  of  intelligent  and  industrious  citizens. 
An  able  professional  man,  merchant,  or  manufac 
turer  cannot  abandon  his  regular  vocation  to  take 
municipal  service,  until  his  success  in  his  profes 
sion  or  business  has  been  so  great  that  he  can 
afford  to  impair,  or  dispense  with,  his  ordinary  an 
nual  earnings.  Aside  from  persons  of  fortune  and 
leisure,  there  are  but  two  classes  of  competent  and 
desirable  men  in  this  country  who  can,  as  a  rule, 
enter  the  public  service  at  all  without  sacrificing 
their  individual  and  family  interests.  These  two 
classes  are  lawyers,  and  business-men  whose  busi 
ness  is  already  so  well  organized  that  they  can  tem 
porarily  abandon  it  without  incurring  any  loss 
which  they  care  about.  Of  the  Fifty-first  Congress 
of  the  United  States,  nearly  three  quarters  are  law 
yers — fully  three  quarters  of  the  Senate,  and  nearly 
three  quarters  of  the  House.  Of  the  other  quarter, 
the  majority  are  business-men  of  the  kind  I  have 
described.  A  lawyer  returning  from  public  service 
to  his  profession  generally  finds,  if  he  is  a  man 
of  ability,  that  his  private  practice  has  been  in 
creased.  A  manufacturer  or  merchant  who  is  al 
ready  rich  can  of  course  run  the  risks  of  the  public 
service.  If  the  voters  abandon  him,  or  his  superior 
discharge  him,  he  can  return  to  his  private  business. 
As  a  rule,  no  other  persons  in  the  American  com 
munity  can  really  afford  to  enter  the  public  service, 
either  municipal  or  national,  as  it  is  at  present 
conducted. 

>     Before  municipal  government  can  be  set  right  in 

198 


One  Remedy  for  Municipal  Misgovemment 

(the  United  States,  municipal  service  must  be  made 
a  life-career  for  intelligent  and  self-respecting 
young  Americans ;  that  is,  it  must  be  made  attrac 
tive  to  well-trained  young  men  to  enter  it, —  as 
they  enter  any  other  profession  or  business, — 
meaning  to  stay  in  it,  learn  it  thoroughly,  and  win 
advancement  in  it  by  fidelity  and  ability.  To  en 
force  this  principle,  to  indicate  this  one  necessary 
direction  of  all  reform  movements,  has  been  my 
modest  object  in  this  paper.  To  say  that  this  re 
form  is  impracticable  is  equivalent  to  saying  that 
American  cities  cannot  be  well  conducted;  and 
that,  again,  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  the  demo 
cratic  form  of  government  is  going  to  be  a  failure 
for  more  than  hah0  the  total  population.  Free  in 
stitutions  themselves  are  valuable  only  as  a  means 
of  public  well-being.  They  will  ultimately  be 
judged  by  their  fruits;  and  therefore  they  must 
be  made  to  minister  fairly  well  to  the  public  com 
fort,  health,  and  pleasure,  and  to  conform  in  their 
administrative  methods  to  the  standards  of  intelli 
gence  and  morality  which  are  maintained  by  other 
trustees  and  large  business  agencies  in  the  same 
communities. 


199 


WHEREIN  POPULAR  EDUCATION 
HAS  FAILED 

PUBLISHED  IN  THE  "  FORUM,"  DECEMBER,   1892 


WHEREIN  POPULAR  EDUCATION 
HAS   FAILED 


IT  cannot  be  denied  that  there  is  serious  and 
general  disappointment  at  the  results  of  popu 
lar  education  up  to  this  date.  Elementary  instruc 
tion  for  all  children  and  more  advanced  instruction 
for  some  children  have  been  systematically  pro 
vided  in  many  countries  for  more  than  two  genera 
tions  at  great  cost  and  with  a  good  deal  of  enthu 
siasm,  though  not  always  on  wise  plans.  Many  of 
the  inventions  of  the  same  rich  period  of  seventy 
years  have  greatly  promoted  the  diffusion  of  edu 
cation  by  cheapening  the  means  of  communicating 
knowledge.  Cheap  books,  newspapers,  and  maga 
zines,  cheap  postage,  cheap  means  of  transporta 
tion,  and  free  libraries  have  all  contributed  to  the 
general  cultivation  of  intelligence,  or  at  least  to  the 
wide  use  of  reading  matter  and  the  spread  of  in 
formation.  In  spite,  however,  of  all  these  efforts 
to  make  education  universal,  all  classes  complain 
more  than  ever  before  of  the  general  conditions  of 
society. 

203 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

Now,  if  general  education  does  not  promote  gen 
eral  contentment,  it  does  not  promote  public  hap 
piness;  for  a  rational  contentment  is  an  essential 
element  in  happiness,  private  or  public.  To  this 
extent  universal  education  must  be  admitted  to 
have  failed  at  the  end  of  two  generations  of  sincere 
and  strenuous,  if  sometimes  misdirected,  effort. 
Perhaps  it  is  too  soon  to  expect  from  public  educa 
tion  any  visible  increase  of  public  contentment 
and  happiness.  It  may  be  that  general  discontent 
is  a  necessary  antecedent  to  social  improvement 
and  a  preliminary  manifestation  of  increased  know 
ledge  and  wisdom  in  all  classes  of  the  community. 
Yet  after  two  whole  generations  it  seems  as  if  some 
increase  of  genuine  reasonableness  of  thought  and 
action  in  all  classes  of  the  population  ought  to  be 
discernible.  Many  persons,  however,  fail  to  see  in 
the  actual  conduct  of  the  various  classes  of  society 
the  evidence  of  increasing  rationality.  These  scep 
tical  observers  complain  that  people  in  general, 
taken  in  masses  with  proper  exclusion  of  excep 
tional  individuals,  are  hardly  more  reasonable  in 
the  conduct  of  life  than  they  were  before  free 
schools,  popular  colleges,  and  the  cheap  printing- 
press  existed.  They  point  out  that  when  the  vul 
gar  learn  to  read  they  want  to  read  trivial  or 
degrading  literature,  such  as  the  common  newspa 
pers  and  periodicals  which  are  mainly  devoted  to 
accidents,  crimes,  criminal  trials,  scandals,  gossip, 
sports,  prize-fights,  and  low  politics.  Is  it  not  the 
common  school  and  the  arts  of  cheap  illustration, 
they  say,  that  have  made  obscene  books,  photo- 

204 


Wherein  "Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

graphs,  and  pictures,  low  novels,  and  all  the  litera 
ture  which  incites  to  vice  and  crime,  profitable, 
and  therefore  abundant  and  dangerous  to  society  ? 
They  complain  that  in  spite  of  every  effort  to  en 
lighten  the  whole  body  of  the  people,  all  sorts  of 
quacks  and  impostors  thrive,  and  that  one  popular 
delusion  or  sophism  succeeds  another,  the  best-edu 
cated  classes  contributing  their  full  proportion  of 
the  deluded.  Thus  the  astrologer  in  the  Middle 
Ages  was  a  rare  personage  and  usually  a  depen 
dent  of  princes ;  but  now  he  advertises  in  the  popu 
lar  newspapers  and  flourishes  as  never  before. 
Men  and  women  of  all  classes,  no  matter  what 
their  education,  seek  advice  on  grave  matters  from 
clairvoyants,  seers,  Christian  scientists,  mind-cure 
practitioners,  bone-setters,  Indian  doctors,  and  for 
tune-tellers.  The  ship  of  state  barely  escapes  from 
one  cyclone  of  popular  folly,  like  the  fiat-money 
delusion  or  the  granger  legislation  of  the  seventies, 
when  another  blast  of  ill-informed  opinion  comes 
down  on  it,  like  the  actual  legislation  which  com 
pels  the  buying  and  storing  of  silver  by  Govern 
ment,  or  the  projected  legislation  which  would 
compel  Government  to  buy  cotton,  wheat,  or  corn, 
and  issue  paper  money  against  the  stock. 

The  educated  critics  of  the  practical  results  of 
public  education  further  complain  that  lawless  vio 
lence  continues  to  break  out  just  as  it  did  before 
common  schools  were  thought  of,  that  lynch  law  is 
familiar  in  the  United  States,  riots  common  from 
Berlin  to  Seattle,  and  assassination  an  avowed 
means  of  social  and  industrial  regeneration.  Even 

205 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

religions  persecution,  these  critics  say,  is  rife.  The 
Jews  are  ostracized  in  educated  Germany  and 
metropolitan  New  York,  and  in  Russia  are  robbed 
and  driven  into  exile  by  thousands.  Furthermore, 
in  spite  of  the  constant  inculcation  of  the  princi 
ples  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  new  tyrannies 
are  constantly  arising.  The  tyrant,  to  be  sure,  is 
no  longer  an  emperor,  a  king,  or  a  feudal  lord,  but 
&  contagious  public  opinion,  a  majority  of  voters 
inclined  to  despotism,  or  an  oppressive  combina 
tion  of  owners,  contractors,  or  workmen.  From 
time  to  time  the  walking  delegate  seems  to  be  a 
formidable  kind  of  tyrant,  all  the  more  formidable 
because  his  authority  is  but  brief  and  his  responsi 
bility  elusive.  Popular  elections  and  political  con 
ventions  and  caucuses  provide  another  set  of  argu 
ments  for  the  sceptics  about  the  results  of  universal 
education.  Have  these  not  been  carried  on  with 
combined  shoutings,  prolonged,  competitive  howl- 
ings,  banners,  torches,  uniforms,  parades,  misrep 
resentations,  suppressions  of  truth,  slanders  and 
vituperation,  rather  than  with  arguments  and  ap 
peals  to  enlightened  self-interest,  benevolence,  pa 
triotism,  and  the  sense  of  public  duty  ?  Are  votes 
less  purchasable  now  than  they  were  before  the 
urban  graded  school  and  the  State  university  were 
known  I  How  irrational  is  the  preparation  made 
by  the  average  voter  for  the  exercise  of  the  func 
tion  of  voting !  He  reads  steadily  one  intensely 
partizan  newspaper,  closes  his  mind  to  all  informa 
tion  and  argument  which  proceed  from  political 
opponents,  distrusts  independent  newspapers  and 

206 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

independent  men,  and  is  afraid  of  joint  debates. 
Such  are  some  of  the  allegations  and  doubts  of  the 
educated  critics  with  regard  to  the  results  of  popu 
lar  education. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  least-educated  and  most 
laborious  classes  complain  that  in  spite  of  uni 
versal  elementary  education,  society  does  not  tend 
toward  a  greater  equality  of  condition;  that  the 
distinctions  between  rich  and  poor  are  not  di 
minished,  but  intensified;  and  that  elementary 
education  does  not  necessarily  procure  for  the 
wage-earner  any  exemption  from  incessant  and 
exhausting  toil.  They  recognize  indeed  that  ma 
chine  labor  has  in  many  cases  been  substituted  for 
hand  labor;  but  they  insist  that  the  direction  of 
machines  is  more  exacting  than  old-fashioned  hand 
work,  and  that  the  extreme  division  of  labor  in 
modern  industries  is  apt  to  make  the  life  of  the 
operative  or  mechanic  monotonous  and  narrowing. 
They  complain  that  the  rich,  though  elaborately 
instructed  in  school  and  church,  accept  no  respon 
sibilities  with  their  wealth,  but  insist  on  being  free 
to  break  up  their  domestic  or  industrial  establish 
ments  at  their  pleasure,  or  in  other  words,  to  give 
or  withhold  employment  as  they  find  it  most  con 
venient  or  profitable.  They  allege  that  the  rich 
man  in  modern  society  does  not  bear,  either  in 
peace  or  in  war,  the  grave  responsibilities  which 
the  rich  man  of  former  centuries,  who  was  a  great 
land-owner,  a  soldier,  and  a  magistrate,  was  com 
pelled  to  bear;  and  that  education,  whether  sim- 
p  or  elaborate,  has  not  made  the  modern  rich 

207 


IVberein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

man  less  selfish  and  luxurious  than  his  predecessor 
in  earlier  centuries  who  could  barely  sign  his  name. 
They  admit  that  the  progress  of  science  has  made 
mankind  safer  from  famine  and  pestilence  than  it 
used  to  be,  but  they  point  out  that  wars  are  more 
destructive  than  ever,  this  century  being  the  blood 
iest  of  all  the  centuries ;  that  European  armies  are 
larger  and  more  expensively  equipped  than  ever 
before,  and  hence  are  more  burdensome  to  the  la 
boring  populations  which  support  them;  while  in 
the  American  republic  the  annual  burden  of  pay 
ing  the  military  and  naval  pensions  which  result 
from  a  single  great  war  is  heavier,  twenty-seven 
years  after  the  war  ended,  than  the  annual  burden 
of  maintaining  the  largest  standing  army  in  Eu 
rope.  Clearly,  the  spread  of  education  has  not  en 
abled  the  nations  to  avoid  war  or  to  diminish  its 
cost  either  in  blood  or  treasure.  If  universal  edu 
cation  cannot  abolish,  or  even  abate,  in  seventy 
years,  the  horrible  waste  and  cruelty  of  war,  can 
anything  great  be  hoped  from  it  for  the  laboring 
classes  ? 

They  complain  also  that  the  education  of  the 
employer  and  the  employed  has  not  made  the  con 
ditions  of  employment  more  humane  and  com 
fortable;  that  almost  all  services  and  industries 
—  agricultural,  domestic,  and  manufacturing  —  are 
organized  on  the  brutal  principle  of  dismissal  on 
the  instant  or  with  briefest  notice,  and  that  assured 
employment  during  good  behavior  and  efficiency, 
which  is  almost  a  prerequisite  of  happiness  for  a 
reasonable  and  provident  person,  remains  the  priv- 

208 


Wberein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

ilege  of  an  insignificant  minority  of  well-to-do  peo 
ple,  like  judges,  professors,  and  officers  of  financial 
and  industrial  corporations.  How  much  has  all 
this  boasted  education  increased  the  intelligence 
and  insight  of  even  the  best-educated  and  most 
capable  people,  if  they  still  cannot  devise  just  and 
satisfying  conditions  of  employment  in  their  own 
households,  shops,  ships,  and  factories!  It  is 
much  more  important  that  fidelity,  constancy, 
loyalty,  and  mutual  respect  and  affection  between 
employer  and  employed  should  be  fostered  by  the 
prevailing  terms  of  employment  than  that  more 
yards  of  cotton  cloth  or  more  tons  of  steel  should 
be  produced,  more  miles  of  railroad  maintained,  or 
more  bushels  of  wheat  raised.  Those  fine  human 
qualities  are  the  ultimate  product  to  be  desired. 
Have  they  been  developed  and  fostered  during  the 
two  generations  of  popular  education?  Or  have 
dishonesty  in  labor,  disloyalty,  mutual  jealousy 
ana  distrust  between  employer  and  employed,  and 
general  discontent  increased  f 

These  indictments  against  universal  education  as 
a  cure  for  ancient  wrongs  and  evils  are  certainly 
formidable ;  but  they  exaggerate  existing  evils  and 
leave  out  of  sight  great  improvements  in  social 
conditions  which  the  last  two  generations  have  seen. 
It  is  only  necessary  for  us  to  call  to  mind  a  few  of 
the  beneficent  changes  which  the  past  seventy 
years  have  wrought,  to  assure  ourselves  that  some 
powerful  influences  for  good  have  been  at  work  in 
the  best-educated  nations.  Consider,  for  example, 
the  mitigation  of  human  miseries  which  the  refor- 


14  200 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

mation  of  penal  codes  and  of  prisons,  the  institu 
tion  of  reformatories,  the  building  of  hospitals, 
asylums,  and  infirmaries,  and  the  abolition  of  piracy 
and  slavery  have  brought  about.  Consider  the 
positive  influence  toward  the  formation  of  habits 
of  industry  and  frugality  exerted  by  such  institu 
tions  as  savings-banks,  mutual-benefit  societies, 
and  life-insurance  corporations.  Unanswerable 
statistics  show  that  during  the  past  seventy  years 
there  has  been  a  steady  improvement  in  the  condi 
tion  of  the  most  laborious  classes  in  modern  society, 
the  wage-earners,  and  this  improvement  touches 
their  earnings,  their  hours  of  labor,  their  lodgings, 
their  food  and  clothing,  and  the  means  of  education 
for  their  children.  Consider  how  step  by  step  ter 
rors  have  been  disarmed,  superstitions  abolishedr 
the  average  duration  of  human  life  lengthened,  and 
civil  order  extended  over  regions  once  desolate  or 
dangerous.  Think  how  family  and  school  disci 
pline  have  been  mitigated  within  two  generations, 
and  how  all  sorts  of  abuses  and  cruelties  are  checked 
and  prevented  by  the  publicity  of  modern  life,  a 
publicity  which  depends  on  the  universal  capacity 
to  read. 

Let  us  remember  that  almost  all  business  is  now 
adays  conducted  on  trust,  trust  that  the  seller  will 
deliver  his  goods  according  to  sample  and  promise, 
and  trust  that  the  buyer  will  pay  at  the  time  ap 
pointed.  Now,  this  general  trustworthiness  is  of 
course  based  on  moral  qualities  which  inhere  in 
the  race,  but  these  qualities  are  effectively  rein 
forced  and  protected  by  the  publicity  which  gen- 

210 


Wberein  Popular  Education  Has,  Failed 

era!  education  has  made  possible.  Consider  how 
freedom  of  intercourse  between  man  and  man, 
tribe  and  tribe,  nation  and  nation  has  been  devel 
oped  even  within  a  single  generation;  how  the 
United  States  have  spread  across  the  continent, 
how  Italy  has  been  made  one  nation,  and  Germany 
one,  and  the  Austrian  Empire  confederated  from 
three  distinct  nationalities.  Every  one  of  these 
great  expansions  or  consolidations  has  resulted  in 
greater  freedom  of  intercourse,  and  in  the  removal 
of  barriers  and  of  causes  of  strife  and  ill-will. 
Moreover,  on  taking  a  broad  view  of  the  changes 
in  civilized  society  since  1830,  do  we  not  see  that 
there  has  been  great  progress  toward  unity, — not 
indeed  toward  uniformity,  but  toward  a  genuine 
unity?  The  different  classes  of  society  and  the 
different  nations  are  still  far  from  realizing  the  lit 
eral  truth  of  the  New  Testament  saying,  "  We  are 
members  one  of  another";  but  they  have  lately 
made  some  approach  to  realizing  that  truth.  Now, 
unity  of  spirit  with  diversity  of  gifts  is  the  real 
end  to  be  attained  in  social  organization.  It  would 
not  be  just  to  contend  that  popular  education  has 
brought  to  pass  all  these  improvements  and  amel 
iorations;  but  it  has  undoubtedly  contributed  to 
them  all.  Moreover,  we  find  on  every  hand  evi 
dences  of  increased  intelligence  in  large  masses  of 
people.  If  war  has  not  ceased,  soldiers  are  cer 
tainly  more  intelligent  than  they  used  to  be,  else 
they  could  not  use  the  arms  of  precision  with  which 
armies  are  now  supplied.  The  same  is  true  of  all 
industries  and  trades — they  require  more  intelli- 

21  I 


W 'herein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

gence  than  formerly  in  all  the  work-people.  While, 
therefore,  we  must  admit  that  education  has  not 
accomplished  all  that  might  fairly  have  been  ex 
pected  of  it,  we  may  believe  that  it  has  had  some 
share  in  bringing  about  many  of  the  ameliorations 
of  the  social  state  in  the  past  two  generations. 

It  is  somewhat  comforting  to  recall,  as  we  confess 
to  disappointment  with  the  results  of  universal 
education,  that  modern  society  has  had  several  dis 
appointments  before  of  a  nature  similar  to  that  it 
now  experiences.  There  was  a  time  when  it  was 
held  that  a  true  and  universally  accepted  religious 
belief  would  bring  with  it  an  ideal  state  of  society ; 
but  this  conviction  resulted  in  sanguinary  persecu 
tions  and  desolating  wars,  for  to  attain  the  ideal 
state  of  society  through  one  true  religion  was  an 
end  so  lofty  as  to  justify  punishing,  and  even  ex 
terminating,  all  who  did  not  accept  the  religion. 
Again,  when  modern  representative  institutions 
were  first  put  into  practice  it  seemed  as  if  the  mil 
lennium  were  near  —  popular  government  seemed 
of  infinite  promise  for  the  happiness  of  mankind. 
Were  not  all  despotisms  to  be  done  away  with? 
Were  not  all  men  to  enjoy  liberty,  equality,  and 
fraternity  ?  It  was  a  painful  surprise  to  discover 
that  under  a  regime  of  general  liberty  a  few  could 
so  use  their  freedom  as  to  gain  undue  advantages 
over  the  many.  It  was  a  disappointment  to  find 
that  superior  shrewdness  and  alertness  could  secure, 
under  public  freedom  and  public  law,  a  lordship 
such  as  superior  force  could  hardly  win  when  there 
were  little  freedom  and  little  law.  How  high  were 

212 


Wberein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

the  expectations  based  on  universal  suffrage — that 
exaltation  of  man  as  man  without  regard  to  his  so 
cial  condition,  that  strong  expression  of  the  equal 
ity  of  all  men  in  political  power !  Yet  all  these 
successive  hopes  have  proved  in  a  measure  delu 
sive.  On  the  whole,  the  most  precious  and  stable 
result  of  the  civilized  world's  experience  during  the 
past  three  hundred  years  is  the  doctrine  of  univer- 
^sal  toleration,  or  liberty  for  all  religious  opinions 
under  the  protection  of  the  state,  there  being  as  yet 
no  such  thing  in  Christian  society  as  one  true  and 
universal  religion.  We  have  all  had  to  learn  that 
representative  institutions  do  not  at  present  neces 
sarily  produce  good  government, —  in  many  Amer 
ican  cities  they  coexist  with  bad  government, —  and 
that  universal  suffrage  is  not  a  panacea  for  social 
ills,  but  simply  the  most  expedient  way  to  enlist 
the  interest  and  support  of  us  all  in  the  govern 
ment  of  us  all.  Never  yet  has  society  succeeded  in 
embodying  in  actual  institutions  a  just  liberty,  a 
real  equality,  or  a  true  fraternity. 

It  was  reasonable,  however,  to  expect  more  from 
universal  education  than  from  any  of  the  other  in 
ventions  to  which  I  have  alluded.  Public  educa-i 
tion  should  mean  the  systematic  training  of  all  I 
children  for  the  duties  of  life;  and  it  seems  as  if 
this  systematic  training  could  work  almost  a  revo-\ 
lution  in  human  society  in  two  or  three  generations, ) 
if  wisely  and  faithfully  conducted.  Why  has  it 
not?  It  seems  to  provide  directly  for  a  general 
increase  of  power  to  reason,  and,  therefore,  of  actual 
reasonableness  in  the  conduct  of  life.  Why  is  it 
u*  213 


Wberein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

possible  to  doubt  whether  any  appreciable  gain  has 
thus  far  been  made  in  these  respects?  I  think  I 
perceive  in  popular  education,  as  generally  con 
ducted  until  recently,  an  inadequacy  and  a  misdi 
rection  which  supply  a  partial  answer  to  these 
disquieting  questions. 

The  right  method  of  developing  in  the  mass  of 
the  population  the  reasoning  power  and  general 
rationality  which  are  needed  for  the  wise  conduct 
of  life  must  closely  resemble  the  method  by  which 
the  intelligence  and  reasoning  power  of  an  individ 
ual  are  developed.  Let  me  next,  therefore,  present 
here  in  some  detail  the  main  processes  or  operations 
of  the  mind  which  systematic  education  should  de 
velop  and  improve  in  an  individual  in  order  to 
increase  his  general  intelligence  and  train  his  rea 
soning  power.  The  first  of  these  processes  or  op 
erations  is  observation;  that  is  to  say,  the  alert, 
intent,  and  accurate  use  of  all  the  senses.  Who 
ever  wishes  to  ascertain  a  present  fact  must  do  it 
through  the  exercise  of  this  power  of  observation, 
whether  the  fact  lie  in  the  animal,  vegetable,  or 
mineral  kingdom ;  whether  it  be  a  fact  of  physics, 
physiology,  sociology,  or  politics.  Facts,  diligently 
sought  for  and  firmly  established,  are  the  only 
foundations  of  sound  reasoning.  The  savage  has 
abundant  practice  in  observation ;  for  he  gets  his 
daily  food  only  by  the  keenest  exercise  of  this 
power.  The  civilized  man,  whose  food  is  brought 
to  him  by  the  railroad,  is  not  forced  by  these  ele 
mentary  necessities  to  keep  his  observational  pow 
ers  keen  and  quick,  and  many  of  his  occupations 

214 


Wberein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

call  for  only  a  limited  use  of  the  observing  organs ; 
so  that  systematic  education  must  provide  in  his 
case  against  the  atrophy  of  these  faculties.  For 
the  training  of  this  power  of  observation  it  does 
not  matter  what  subject  the  child  studies,  so  that 
he  study  something  thoroughly  by  an  observational 
method.  If  the  method  be  right,  it  does  not  mat 
ter,  among  the  numerous  subjects  well  fitted  to 
develop  this  important  faculty,  which  he  choose, 
or  which  be  chosen  for  him.  The  study  of  any 
branch  of  natural  history,  chemistry,  or  physics, 
any  well-conducted  work  with  tools  or  machines, 
and  many  of  the  sports  of  children  and  adults,  such 
as  sailing,  fishing,  and  hunting,  will  develop  this 
power,  provided  thorough  exercise  of  the  observa 
tional  powers  be  secured.  For  the  purpose  we 
have  now  in  view,  it  is  vastly  better  that  he  study 
one  subject  thoroughly  than  several  superficially. 
The  field  within  which  the  power  is  exercised  may 
be  narrow  or  special ;  but  these  words  do  not  ap 
ply  to  the  power.  During  this  training  in  accurate 
observation,  the  youth  should  learn  how  hard  it  is 
to  determine  with  certainty  even  an  apparently 
simple  fact.  He  should  learn  to  distrust  the  evi 
dence  of  his  own  senses,  to  repeat,  corroborate,  and 
verify  his  observations,  and  to  mark  the  profound 
distinction  between  the  fact  and  any  inference, 
however  obvious,  from  the  fact. 

The  next  function,  process,  or  operation  which 

education  should  develop  in  the  individual  is  the 

|  function  of  making  a  correct  record  of  things  ob- 

j  served.    The  record  may  be  either  mental  only, 

215 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

that  is,  stamped  on  the  memory,  or  it  may  be  re 
duced  to  writing  or  print.  The  savage  transmits 
orally  to  his  children  or  his  tribe  such  records  as 
his  brain  contains  of  nature's  lore  and  of  his  ex 
perience  in  war  and  the  chase ;  but  civilized  man 
makes  continuous  and  cumulative  records  of  sifted, 
sorted,  and  grouped  facts  of  observation  and  ex 
perience,  and  on  these  records  the  progress  of  the 
race  depends.  Hence  the  supreme  importance  that 
every  child  be  instructed  and  drilled  at  every  stage 
of  his  education  in  the  art  of  making  an  accurate 
and  vivid  record  of  things  seen,  heard,  felt,  done, 
or  suffered.  This  power  of  accurate  description  or 
recording  is  identical  in  all  fields  of  inquiry.  The 
child  may  describe  what  it  sees  in  a  columbine,  or 
in  the  constellation  of  Orion,  or  on  the  wharves, 
or  in  the  market,  or  in  the  Children's  Hospital,  and 
its  power  of  description  may  be  exercised  in  speech 
or  in  writing ;  but  for  the  benefit  of  the  commu 
nity,  as  distinguished  from  the  satisfaction  of  the 
individual  and  the  benefit  of  his  family  or  associ 
ates,  the  faculty  should  be  abundantly  exercised  in 
writing  as  well  as  speech.  In  this  constant  drill 
the  conscience  cannot  fail  to  be  refined  and  in- 
'structed;  for  to  make  a  scrupulously  accurate 
statement  of  a  fact  observed,  with  all  needed  quali 
fications  and  limitations,  is  as  good  a  training  of 
the  conscience  as  secular  education  can  furnish. 

The  next  mental  function  which  education  should 
develop,  if  it  is  to  increase  reasoning  power  and 
general  intelligence,  is  the  faculty  of  drawing  cpr- 
rect  inferences  from  recorded  observations.  This 

216 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

faculty  is  almost  identical  with  the  faculty  of  group 
ing  or  coordinating  kindred  facts,  comparing  one 
group  with  another  or  with  all  the  others,  and  then 
drawing  an  inference  which  is  sure,  in  proportion 
to  the  number  of  cases,  instances,  or  experiences 
on  which  it  is  based.  This  power  is  developed  by 
practice  in  induction.  It  is  often  a  long  way  from 
the  patent  fact  to  the  just  inference.  For  centuries 
the  Phenician  and  Roman  navigators  had  seen 
the  hulls  of  vessels  disappearing  below  the  blue 
horizon  of  the  Mediterranean  while  their  sails  were 
visible ;  but  they  never  drew  the  inference  that  the 
earth  was  round.  On  any  particular  subject  it 
may  take  generations  or  centuries  to  accumulate 
facts  enough  to  establish  a  just  inference  or  gener 
alization.  The  earlier  accumulations  may  be  insuf 
ficient,  the  first  grouping  wrong,  the  first  samplings 
deceptive;  and  so  the  first  general  inference  may  be 
incorrect ;  but  the  method,  rightly  practised,  leads 
straight  to  truth.  It  is  the  patient,  candid,  im 
partial,  universal  method  of  modern  science. 

Fourthly,  education  should  cultivate  jthe  power^ 
of  expressing  one's  thoughts  clearly,  concisely,  and 
cogently.  This  power  is  to  be  procured  only  by 
much  practice  in  the  mother  tongue,  and  this  prac 
tice  should  make  part  of  every  child's  education 
from  beginning  to  end.  So  far  as  a  good  style 
can  be  said  to  be  formed  or  created  at  all,  it  is 
ordinarily  formed  by  constant  practice  under  judi 
cious  criticism.  If  this  practice  and  criticism  are 
supplied,  it  is  unimportant  whether  the  student 
write  an  historical  narrative,  or  a  translation  from 

217 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

Xenophon,  or  a  laboratory  note-book,  or  an  ac 
count  of  a  case  of  hypnotism  or  typhoid  fever,  or 
a  law-brief,  or  a  thesis  on  comparative  religion; 
the  subject-matter  is  comparatively  indifferent,  so 
far  as  the  cultivation  of  accurate  and  forcible  speech 
or  writing  is  concerned.  In  cultivating  any  field 
of  knowledge  this  power  of  expression  can  be  won 
if  the  right  means  be  used,  and  if  these  means  be 
neglected  it  will  not  be  won  in  any  field.  For 
cultivating  the  habit  of  reasoning  justly,  however, 
there  is  one  kind  of  practice  in  expressing  one's 
thoughts  which  has  special  importance,  namely, 
practice  in  argumentative  composition  —  in  the 
logical  and  persuasive  development  of  an  argu 
ment,  starting  from  well-selected  premises  and 
brought  to  a  just  conclusion. 

Let  no  one  imagine  that  I  am  omitting  poetry 
from  systematic  education.  In  that  highest  of  all 
arts  of  expression,  the  art  of  poetry,  the  four  men 
tal  functions  or  operations  we  have  now  considered 
—  observing,  recording,  comparing  and  inferring, 
and  expressing  —  may  be  seen  in  combination,  each 
often  exhibited  to  high  degree.  The  poet's  power 
of  observation  often  supplies  him  with  his  most 
charming  verses.  Tennyson  noticed  that  the  ash 
put  out  its  leaves  in  spring  much  later  than  the 
other  trees,  and  this  is  the  exquisite  use  he  made 
of  that  botanical  observation : 

"  Why  lingereth  she  to  clothe  her  heart  with  love, 
Delaying,  as  the  tender  ash  delays 
To  clothe  herself,  when  all  the  woods  are  green  ?  " 
218 


Wberein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

The  poet's  power  of  describing,  and  of  stirring  and 
inspiring  by  his  descriptions,  depends  on  the  com 
bination  in  him  of  keen  observation,  rare  suscepti 
bility  to  beauty  and  grandeur,  spiritual  insight, 
and  faculty  of  inferential  suggestion.  In  four  lines 
Emerson  puts  before  us  the  natural  and  spiritual 
scene  at  the  Concord  River  on  the  19th  of  April, 
1775: 

u  By  the  rude  bridge  that  arched  the  flood, 

Their  flag  to  April's  breeze  unfurled, 
Here  once  the  embattl'd  farmers  stood, 

And  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world." 

In  twenty-eight  words  here  are  the  whole  scene 
and  all  the  essential  circumstances  —  the  place  and 
season,  the  stout  actors,  their  rustic  social  state, 
the  heroic  deed,  and  its  infinite  reverberation. 
What  an  accurate,  moving,  immortal  description 
is  this !  Even  for  logical  and  convincing  argu 
ment  poetry  is  often  the  finest  vehicle.  If  any 
body  doubts  this  let  him  read  again  the  twenty- 
third  Psalm,  from  its  opening  premise,  "  The  Lord 
is  my  shepherd,"  to  its  happy  conclusion,  "  Surely 
goodness  and  mercy  shall  follow  me  all  the  days  of 
my  life " ;  or  let  him  follow  the  reasoning  of  God 
with  Job,  from  the  inquiry,  "Where  wast  thou 
when  I  laid  the  foundations  of  the  earth  ? "  to  Job's 
conclusion,  "Wherefore  I  abhor  myself  and  repent 
in  dust  and  ashes." 

These,  then,  are  the  four  things  in  which  the  in 
dividual  youth  should  be  thoroughly  trained,  if  his 
judgment  and  reasoning  power  are  to  be  systemat- 

219 


IVberein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

ically  developed:  observing  accurately;  recording 
correctly;  comparing,  grouping,  and  inferring 
justly ;  and  expressing  cogently  the  results  of  these 
mental  operations.  These  are  the  things  in  which 
ithe  population  as  a  mass  must  be  trained  in  youth, 
if  its  judgment  and  reasoning  power  are  to  be  sys 
tematically  developed. 

Let  us  now  consider  whether  the  bulk  of  the 
work  done  in  free  public  schools  for  the  mass  of 
the  children  contributes  materially  to  the  develop 
ment  of  the  mental  capacities  just  described.  More 
than  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  school-children  do  not 
get  beyond  the  "grades,"  or  the  grammar  school, 
as  we  say  in  New  England.  Now,  what  are  the 
staples  of  instruction  in  the  "grades,"  or  in  the 
primary  and  grammar  schools  of  New  England? 
They  are  reading,  spelling,  writing,  geography,  and 
arithmetic.  In  very  recent  years  there  has  been 
added  to  these  subjects  some  practice  in  observa 
tion,  through  drawing,  manual  training,  kindergar 
ten  work  in  general,  and  lessons  in  elementary 
science ;  but  these  additions  to  the  staple  subjects 
are  all  recent,  and  have  not  taken  full  effect  on 
any  generation  now  at  work  in  the  world.  More 
over,  it  is  but  a  small  proportion  of  the  total 
school-time  which  is  even  now  devoted  to  these 
observational  subjects.  The  acquisition  of  the  art 
of  reading  is  mostly  a  matter  of  memory.  It  is  of 
course  not  without  effect  on  the  development  of  the 
intelligence ;  but  it  does  not  answer  well  any  one 
of  the  four  fundamental  objects  in  an  education 
directed  to  the  development  of  reasoning  power. 

220 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

The  same  must  be  said  of  writing,  which  is  in  the 
main  a  manual  exercise  and  one  by  no  means  so 
well  adapted  to  cultivate  the  powers  of  observa 
tion,  the  sense  of  form,  and  the  habit  of  accuracy 
as  many  other  sorts  of  manual  work,  such  as  car 
pentering,  turning,  forging,  and  modeling.  As  to 
English  spelling,  it  is  altogether  a  matter  of  mem 
ory.  We  have  heretofore  put  too  much  confidence 
in  the  mere  acquisition  of  the  arts  of  reading  and 
writing.  After  these  arts  are  acquired  there  is 
much  to  be  done  to  make  them  effective  for  the 
development  of  the  child's  intelligence.  If  his  rea 
soning  power  is  to  be  developed  through  reading, 
he  must  be  guided  to  the  right  sort  of  reading. 
The  school  must  teach  not  only  how  to  read,  but 
what  to  read,  and  it  must  develop  a  taste  for 
wholesome  reading.  Geography,  as  commonly 
taught,  means  committing  to  memory  a  mass  of 
curiously  uninteresting  and  unimportant  facts. 

There  remains  arithmetic,  the  school  subject 
most  relied  on  to  train  the  reasoning  faculty. 
From  one  sixth  to  one  fourth,  or  even  one  third, 
of  the  whole  school-time  of  American  children  is 
given  to  the  subject  of  arithmetic  —  a  subject 
which  does  not  train  a  single  one  of  the  four  facul 
ties  to  develop  which  should  be  the  fundamental 
object  of  education.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  ob 
serving  correctly,  or  with  recording  accurately  the 
results  of  observation,  or  with  collating  facts  and 
drawing  just  inferences  therefrom,  or  with  express 
ing  clearly  and  forcibly  logical  thought.  Its  reason 
ing  has  little  application  in  the  great  sphere  of  the 

221 


IVberein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

moral  sciences,  because  it  is  necessary  and  not 
probable  reasoning.  In  spite  of  the  common  im 
pression  that  arithmetic  is  a  practical  subject,  it  is 
of  very  limited  application  in  common  life,  except 
in  its  simplest  elements  —  the  addition,  subtrac 
tion,  multiplication,  and  division  of  small  numbers. 
It  indeed  demands  of  the  pupil  mental  effort ;  but 
all  subjects  that  deserve  any  place  in  education  do 
that.  On  the  whole,  therefore,  it  is  the  least  re 
munerative  subject  in  elementary  education  as  now 
conducted. 

But  let  us  look  somewhat  higher  in  the  hierarchy 
of  educational  institutions.  It  has  been  roughly 
computed  that  about  five  per  cent,  of  the  school 
children  in  the  United  States  go  on  to  the  second 
ary  schools.  In  these  schools  is  attention  chiefly 
devoted  to  the  development  and  training  of  the 
reasoning  faculty!  By  no  means.  In  most  sec 
ondary  schools  of  a  high  class  a  large  part  of  the 
whole  time  is  given  to  the  study  of  languages. 
Thus  in  the  Cambridge  Public  Latin  School  twen 
ty-eight  hundred  and  twenty  lessons  are  devoted 
in  the  course  of  six  years  to  the  languages ;  to  all 
other  subjects  ten  hundred  and  seventy.  At  the 
Ann  Arbor  High  School,  in  the  seven  distinct 
courses  all  taken  together,  there  are  twenty-seven 
hundred  and  forty-six  lessons  in  languages,  against 
forty-one  hundred  and  eighty-four  in  all  other  sub 
jects —  and  this  although  many  options  are  allowed 
to  the  pupils  of  the  school,  and  the  variety  of  sub 
jects  not  linguistic  is  large.  In  the  Lawrenceville 
School,  a  well-endowed  preparatory  school  in  New 

222 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

Jersey,  twenty  hundred  and  thirty-three  lessons 
are  devoted  to  languages,  against  nineteen  hundred 
and  seventeen  devoted  to  all  other  subjects.  Now, 
the  teaching  of  a  language  may  be  made  the  vehi 
cle  of  admirable  discipline  in  discriminating  think 
ing  ;  but  it  is  a  rare  language- teacher  who  makes  it 
the  vehicle  of  such  thinking.  The  ordinary  teach 
ing  of  a  foreign  language,  living  or  dead,  cultivates 
in  the  pupil  little  besides  memory  and  a  curious 
faculty  of  assigning  the  formation  of  a  word  or  the 
construction  of  a  phrase  to  the  right  rule  in  the 
grammar  —  a  rule  which  the  pupil  may  or  may  not 
understand.  The  preponderance  of  language-les 
sons  in  many  secondary  schools  presents,  there 
fore,  great  dangers.  Moreover,  in  most  secondary 
schools,  among  the  subjects  other  than  languages, 
there  will  generally  be  found  several  which  seem 
to  be  taught  for  the  purpose  of  giving  information 
rather  than  of  imparting  power.  Such  are  the 
common  high-school  and  academy  topics  in  history, 
natural  history,  psychology,  astronomy,  political 
economy,  civil  government,  mechanics,  constitu 
tional  law,  and  commercial  law.  These  subjects, 
as  they  are  now  taught,  seldom  train  any  power 
but  that  of  memory.  As  a  rule,  the  feebler  a  high 
school  or  academy  is,  the  more  these  information 
subjects  figure  in  its  programme;  and  when  a 
strong  school  offers  several  distinct  courses,  the 
shorter  and  weaker  courses  are  sure  to  exhibit  an 
undue  number  of  these  subjects.  I  need  not  say 
that  these  subjects  are  in  themselves  grand  fields 
of  knowledge,  and  that  any  one  of  them  might 

223 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

furnish  a  solid  mental  training.  It  is  the  way 
they  are  used  that  condemns  them.  The  pupil  is 
practically  required  to  commit  to  memory  a  primer 
or  a  small  elementary  manual  for  the  sake  of  the 
information  it  contains.  There  can  be  no  training 
of  the  reason  in  such  a  process. 

If  now  we  rise  to  the  course  which  succeeds  that 
of  .the  high  school  or  academy,  the  college  course, 
we  find  essentially  the  same  condition  of  things  in 
most  American  institutions.  The  cultivation  of 
the  memory  predominates ;  that  of  the  observing, 
^inferring,  and  reasoning  faculties  is  subordinated. 
Strangest  of  all,  from  bottom  to  top  of  the  educa 
tional  system,  the  art  of  expressing  one's  thought 
clearly  and  vigorously  in  the  mother  tongue  re 
ceives  comparatively  little  attention. 

When  one  reviews  the  course  of  instruction  in 
schools  and  colleges  with  the  intention  of  discover 
ing  how  much  of  it  contributes  directly  to  the  de 
velopment  of  reasoning  power,  one  cannot  but  be 
struck  with  the  very  small  portion  of  time  ex 
pressly  devoted  to  this  all-important  object.  No 
amount  of  memoriter  study  of  languages  or  of  the 
natural  sciences,  and  no  attainments  in  arithmetic, 
will  protect  a  man  or  woman — except,  imperfectly, 
through  a  certain  indirect  cultivation  of  general 
intelligence — from  succumbing  to  the  first  plausi 
ble  delusion  or  sophism  he  or  she  may  encounter. 
No  amount  of  such  studies  will  protect  one  from 
believing  in  astrology,  or  theosophy,  or  free  silver, 
or  strikes,  or  boycotts,  or  in  the  persecution  of 
Jews  or  of  Mormons,  or  in  the  violent  exclusion  of 

224 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

non-union  men  from  employment.  One  is  fortified 
against  the  acceptance  of  unreasonable  proposi 
tions  only  by  skill  in  determining  facts  through 
observation  and  experience,  by  practice  in  compar 
ing  facts  or  groups  of  facts,  and  by  the  unvarying 
habit  of  questioning  and  verifying  allegations,  and 
of  distinguishing  between  facts  and  inferences  from 
facts,  and  between  a  true  cause  and  an  antecedent 
event.  One  must  have  direct  training  and  practice 
in  logical  speech  and  writing  before  he  can  be  quite 
safe  against  specious  rhetoric  and  imaginative  ora 
tory.  Many  popular  delusions  are  founded  on  the 
commonest  of  fallacies — this  preceded  that,  there 
fore  this  caused  that ;  or,  in  shorter  phrase,  what 
preceded,  caused.  For  example :  I  was  sick ;  I 
took  such  and  such  a  medicine  and  became  well; 
therefore  the  medicine  cured  me.  During  the  civil 
war  the  Government  issued  many  millions  of  paper- 
money,  and  some  men  became  very  rich ;  therefore 
the  way  to  make  all  men  richer  must  be  to  issue 
from  the  Government  presses  an  indefinite  amount 
of  paper-money.  The  wages  of  American  working- 
men  are  higher  than  those  of  English  in  the  same 
trades;  protection  has  been  the  policy  of  the 
United  States  and  approximate  free  trade  the 
policy  of  England;  therefore  high  tariffs  cause 
high  wages.  Bessemer  steel  is  much  cheaper  now 
than  it  was  twenty  years  ago;  there  has  been  a 
tariff  tax  on  Bessemer  steel  in  the  United  States 
for  the  past  twenty  years ;  therefore  the  tax  cheap 
ened  the  steel.  England,  France,  and  Germany 
are  civilized  and  prosperous  nations;  they  have 

15  ~~r- 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

enormous  public  debts ;  therefore  a  public  debt  is 
a  public  blessing.  He  must  carry  Ithuriel's  spear 
and  wear  stout  armor  who  can  always  expose  and 
resist  this  fallacy.  It  is  not  only  the  uneducated 
or  the  little  educated  who  are  vanquished  by  it. 
There  are  many  educated  people  who  have  little 
better  protection  against  delusions  and  sophisms 
than  the  uneducated;  for  the  simple  reason  that 
their  education,  though  prolonged  and  elaborate, 
was  still  not  of  a  kind  to  train  their  judgment  and 
reasoning  powers. 

Again,  very  few  persons  scrutinize  with  sufficient 
care  the  premises  on  which  a  well-formed  argument 
is  constructed.  Hence  a  plausible  argument  may 
have  strong  influence  for  many  years  with  great 
bodies  of  people,  when  the  facts  on  which  alone 
the  argument  could  be  securely  based  have  never 
been  thoroughly  and  accurately  determined.  The 
great  public  discussion  now  going  on  throughout 
the  country  affords  a  convenient  illustration.  For 
generations  it  has  been  alleged  that  high  tariffs 
are  necessary  in  this  country  in  order  to  protect 
American  workmen  from  the  competition  of  Euro 
pean  workmen,  whose  scales  of  living  and  of  wages 
are  lower  than  those  of  the  American;  but  until 
within  four  years  no  serious  attempt  has  been  made 
to  ascertain  precisely  what  the  difference  really  is 
between  the  cost  of  English  labor  and  of  American 
labor  on  a  given  unit  of  manufactured  product  in 
the  several  protected  industries.  Such  inquiries 
are  complicated  and  difficult,  and  demand  exten- 

226 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

sive  and  painstaking  research,  with  all  the  advan 
tages  governmental  authority  can  give. 

The  publication  made  in  1891  by  the  Commis 
sioner  of  Labor  at  Washington  concerning  the  cost 
of  producing  iron  and  steel  is  the  first  real  attempt 
to  determine  the  facts  upon  which  the  theory  of  a 
single  group  of  important  items  in  our  tariff  might 
have  been  based.  One  of  Mr.  Wright's  carefully- 
stated  conclusions  in  this  huge,  statistical  volume 
is  that  the  difference  between  the  direct  labor- 
cost  of  one  ton  of  steel  rails  in  the  United  States 
and  in  England  is  three  dollars  and  seventy-eight 
cents.  If  we  allow  the  large  margin  of  fifty  per 
cent,  each  way  for  possible  error  in  these  figures, 
we  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  the  excess  of 
the  direct  labor-cost  of  producing  from  the  as 
sembled  materials  one  ton  of  steel  rails  in  this 
country  lies  somewhere  between  one  dollar  and 
eighty-nine  cents  and  five  dollars  and  sixty-seven 
cents,  with  the  probability  in  favor  of  three  dollars 
and  seventy-eight  cents.  Now,  the  duty  on  one 
ton  of  steel  rails  is  thirteen  dollars  and  forty-four 
cents ;  so  that  it  is  obvious  that  the  amount  of  this 
tax  stands  in  no  close  relation  to  the  difference 
between  the  cost  of  the  American  and  English 
labor,  and  that  some  other  motive  than  the  protec 
tion  of  American  labor  determined  the  amount  of 
the  tax.  Yet  the  argument  that  the  high-tariff 
taxes  exist  for  the  protection  of  American  wage- 
earners  has  long  had  great  weight  in  the  minds  of 
millions  of  Americans  who  can  read,  write,  and 

227 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

cipher.  For  my  present  purpose  it  is  a  matter  of 
indifference  whether  the  assumption  which  under 
lies  this  argument,  namely,  that  workmen  are  not 
productive  and  valuable  in  proportion  to  their 
cale  of  wages  and  standard  of  living,  be  true  or 
false.  What  I  want  to  point  out  is  that  the  argu- 
*ae$it  has  no  right  to  much  influence  in  determining 
the  amount  of  taxes  which  burden  the  entire  pop 
ulation,  inasmuch  as  the  facts  on  which  alone  it 
can  be  securely  based  are  as  yet  wanting  for  a 
great  majority  of  the  protected  industries.  Is  it 
not  quite  clear  that  the  people,  as  a  whole,  have 
not  been  taught  to  scrutinize  severely  the  premises 
of  an  argument  to  which  they  are  inclined  to  give 
weight,  and  that  popular  education  has  never  af 
forded,  and  does  not  now  afford,  any  adequate  de 
fense  against  this  kind  of  unreason  1 

Let  me  further  observe  that  throughout  all  edu 
cation,  both  public  and  private,  both  in  the  school 
and  in  the  family,  there  has  been  too  much  reliance 
on  the  principle  of  authority,  too  little  on  the  pro 
gressive  and  persistent  appeal  to  reason.  By 
commands,  or  by  the  authoritative  imposition  of 
opinions,  it  is  possible  for  a  time  to  protect  a  child, 
or  a  generation  or  nation  of  childish  men,  from 
some  dangers  and  errors ;  but  the  habit  of  obedi 
ence  to  authority  and  of  the  passive  reception  of 
imposed  opinions  is  almost  inconsistent  with  an 
effective  development  of  reasoning  power  and  of 
independence  of  thought. 

What,  then,  are  the  changes  in  the  course  of 
popular  education  which  we  must  strive  after  if 

228 


Wberein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

we  would  develop  for  the  future  more  successfully 
than  in  the  past  the  rationality  of  the  population  ? 
In  the  first  place,  we  must  make  practice  in  think 
ing,  or  in  other  words,  the  strengthening  of  reason-, 
ing  power,  the  constant  object  of  all  teaching,  from! 
infancy  to  adult  age,  no  matter  what  may  be  the' 
subject  of  instruction.  After  the  most  necessary* 
manual  and  mental  arts  have  been  acquired,  those 
subjects  should  be  taught  most  which  each  indi 
vidual  teacher  is  best  fitted  to  utilize  for  making 
his  pupils  think,  or  which  develop  best  in  the  in 
dividual  pupil  his  own  power  to  reason.  For  this 
purpose  the  same  subject  will  not  be  equally  good 
for  all  teachers  or  for  all  pupils.  One  teacher  can 
make  her  pupils  think  most  eagerly  and  consecu 
tively  in  the  subject  of  geography,  another  in  zo 
ology,  and  another  in  Latin.  One  pupil  can  be 
induced  most  easily  to  exercise  strenuously  his 
powers  of  observation  and  discrimination  on  the 
facts  of  a  language  new  to  him,  another  on  the 
phenomena  of  plant  life,  and  another  on  the  events 
of  some  historical  period.  If  only  this  training 
could  be  everywhere  recognized  in  daily  practice 
as  the  supreme  and  ultimate  object  in  all  teaching, 
a  great  improvement  would  soon  be  wrought  in 
the  results  of  public  instruction. 

Besides  recognizing  in  practice  this  prime  object 
of  all  education,  we  can  make  certain  specific 
changes  in  the  common  subjects  or  methods  of  in 
struction  which  will  greatly  further  this  object, 
and  we  can  promote  such  useful  changes  as  have 
already  been  introduced.  Thus  we  can  give  wise 
15*  229 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

extension  to  the  true  observation  studies  already 
introduced  into  the  earlier  years  of  the  school  sys 
tem.  Again,  we  can  give  much  more  time  than  is 
now  given  to  the  practice  of  accurate  description 
and  argumentative  composition  in  writing.  This 
practice  should  begin  in  the  kindergarten  and  be 
pursued  through  the  university.  We  expect  to 
teach  children  to  write  English  with  a  very  small 
part  of  the  practice  they  get  in  speaking  English. 
With  all  the  practice  and  criticism  of  their  speech 
that  school-children  get  every  day,  correct  speech 
is  by  no  means  common.  Should  we  expect  to  get 
correct  writing  with  much  less  attention  than  we 
give  to  speech  ? 

We  must  also  teach  elaborately  in  schools  those 
subjects  which  give  practice  in  classification  and 
induction.  The  natural  sciences  all  lend  them 
selves  to  this  branch  of  school  work;  but  they 
must  be  taught  in  such  a  way  as  to  extract  from 
them  the  peculiar  discipline  they  are  fitted  to  yield. 
It  is  of  no  use  to  commit  to  memory  books  on  sci 
ence.  A  little  information  may  be  gained  in  this 
way,  but  no  power.  They  must  be  taught  by  the 
laboratory  method,  with  constant  use  of  the  labora 
tory  note-book,  and  with  careful  study  of  trains 
of  experimentation  and  reasoning  which  in  times 
past  actually  led  to  great  discoveries.  Yet  to  study 
the  natural  sciences  is  not  a  sure  way  to  develop 
reasoning  power.  It  is  just  as  easy  to  teach  natural 
science,  even  by  laboratory  methods,  without  ever 
making  the  pupils  reason  closely  about  their  work, 
as  to  teach  Latin  or  German  without  cultivating 

230 


IVberein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

the  pupils'  powers  of  comparison  and  discrimina 
tion.    Effective  training  of  the  reasoning  powers 
cannot  be  secured  simply  by  choosing  this  subject] 
or  that  for  study.    The  method  of  study  and  the  ( 
aim  in  studying  are  the  all-important  things. 

For  the  older  pupils,  the  time  devoted  to  histori 
cal  studies  ought  to  be  much  increased;  not  that 
they  may  learn  the  story  of  dynasties  or  of  wars, 
but  that  they  may  learn  how,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
arts  came  into  being,  commerce  was  developed  by 
one  city  or  nation  after  another,  great  literatures 
originated  and  grew  up,  new  industries  arose,  fresh 
discoveries  were  made,  and  social  conditions  were 
ameliorated.  They  should  discover  through  what 
imagining,  desiring,  contriving,  and  planning, 
whether  of  individual  leaders  or  of  masses  of  men, 
these  great  steps  in  human  progress  came  to  be 
taken.  They  should  study  the  thinking  and  feeling 
of  past  generations  for  guidance  to  right  thoughts 
and  sentiments  in  the  present  and  future.  It  is  a 
disgrace  to  organized  education  that  any  nation 
should  refuse,  as  our  own  people  are  so  apt  to  do, 
to  learn  from  the  experience  of  other  nations ;  the 
schools  must  have  failed  to  teach  history  as  they 
should  have  done.  As  Benjamin  Franklin  said, 
"Experience  keeps  a  dear  school;  but  fools  will 
learn  in  no  other,  and  scarce  in  that." 

In  the  higher  part  of  the  system  of  public  in 
struction  two  difficult  subjects  deserve  to  receive 
a  much  larger  share  of  attention  than  they  now 
obtain  —  political  economy  and  sociology.     They  ; 
should  be  studied,  however,  not  as  information 

231 


Wherein  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

subjects,  but  as  training  or  disciplinary  subjects; 
for  during  the  past  thirty  years  the  means  of  using 
them  as  disciplinary  subjects  have  been  accumu 
lated  in  liberal  measure.  They  can  now  be  studied 
in  their  elements  on  broad  foundations  of  fact,  the 
results  of  scientific  research;  and  many  of  their 
fundamental  principles  can  be  placed  within  the 
reach  of  minds  not  yet  adult. 

i  Finally,  argumentation  needs  to  be  taught  syste 
matically  in  schools ;  not  in  the  form  of  a  theoreti 
cal  logic,  but  in  concrete  form  through  the  study 
of  arguments  which  have  had  weight  in  determin 
ing  the  course  of  trade,  industries,  or  public  affairs, 
or  have  made  epochs  in  discovery,  invention,  or 
the  progress  of  science.  The  actual  arguments 
used  by  the  participants  in  great  debates  should 
be  studied,  and  not  the  arguments  attributed  to  or 
invented  for  the  actors  long  after  the  event.  Books 
preserve  many  such  epoch-making  arguments;  and 
during  the  present  century  many  which  were  only 
spoken  have  been  preserved  by  stenography  and 
the  daily  press.  For  these  uses,  arguments  which 
can  be  compared  with  the  ultimate  event,  and 
proved  true  or  false  by  the  issue,  have  great  ad 
vantages.  The  issue  actually  establishes,  or  dis 
proves,  the  conclusion  the  argument  sought  to 
establish.  As  examples  of  instructive  arguments 
I  may  cite  Burke's  argument  on  conciliation  with 
the  American  colonies,  and  Webster's,  on  the  nature 
and  value  of  the  Federal  Union ;  the  debate  be 
tween  Lincoln  and  Douglas  on  the  extension  of 
slavery  into  the  Territories ;  the  demonstration  by 

232 


Wberem  Popular  Education  Has  Failed 

Sir  Charles  Lyell  that  the  ancient  and  the  present 
systems  of  terrestrial  changes  are  identical ;  the 
proofs  contrived  and  set  forth  by  Sir  John  Lub- 
bock  that  the  ant  exhibits  memory,  affection, 
morality,  and  cooperative  power;  the  prophetic 
argument  of  Mill  that  industries  conducted  on  a 
great  scale  will  ultimately  make  liberty  of  compe 
tition  illusory,  and  will  form  extensive  combina 
tions  to  maintain  or  advance  prices;  and  that 
well-reasoned  prophecy  of  disturbance  and  dis 
aster  in  the  trade  of  the  United  States  written  by 
Cairnes  in  September,  1873,  and  so  dramatically 
fulfilled  in  the  commercial  crisis  of  that  month. 
Such  arguments  are  treasuries  of  instruction  for 
the  rising  generation,  for  they  furnish  safe  ma 
terials  for  thorough  instruction  in  sound  reason 
ing.  We  have  expected  to  teach  sound  reasoning 
incidentally  and  indirectly,  just  as  we  have  ex 
pected  to  teach  young  people  to  write  good  Eng 
lish  by  teaching  them  foreign  languages.  It  is  high 
time  that  we  taught  the  young  by  direct  practice 
and  high  examples  to  reason  justly  and  effectively. 
Such  are  some  of  the  measures  which  we  may 
reasonably  hope  will  make  popular  education  in 
the  future  more  successful  than  it  has  been  in  the 
past  in  developing  universal  reasonableness. 


THREE  RESULTS  OF  THE 
SCIENTIFIC  STUDY  OF  NATURE 

ADDRESS 

AT  THE  OPENING  OF  THE  NEW  BUILDING  OF  THE  AMERICAN  MUSEUM  OF 
NATURAL  HISTORY,  NEW  YORK,  DECEMBER  22,  1877. 


THREE  RESULTS  OF  THE 
SCIENTIFIC  STUDY  OF  NATURE 


IN  whose  honor  are  the  chief  personages  of  the 
nation,  State,  and  city  here  assembled?  Whose 
palace  is  this?  What  divinity  is  worshiped  in 
this  place  ?  We  are  assembled  here  to  own  with 
gratitude  the  beneficent  power  of  natural  science ; 
to  praise  and  thank  its  votaries;  and  to  dedicate 
this  splendid  structure  to  its  service.  The  power 
to  which  we  here  do  homage  is  the  accumulated  \ 
intelligence  of  our  race  applied,  generation  after 
generation,  to  the  study  of  nature ;  and  this  palace 
is  the  storehouse  of  the  elaborated  materials  which 
that  intelligence  has  garnered,  ordered,  and  illumi 
nated.  What  has  natural  science  done  for  man 
kind  that  it  should  be  thus  honored  ?  In  the  brief 
moments  allotted  to  me  I  can  but  mention  three 
pregnant  results  of  the  scientific  study  of  nature. 

In  the  first  place,  natural  science  has  engendered 
a  peculiar  kind  of  human  mind  —  the  searching, ; 
open,  humble  mind,  which,  knowing  that  it  cannot 
attain  unto  all  truth,  or  even  to  much  new  truth, 

237 


Three  Results  of  the  Scientific  Study  of  Nature 

is  yet  patiently  and  enthusiastically  devoted  to 
the  pursuit  of  such  little  new  truth  as  is  within 
its  grasp,  having  no  other  end  than  to  learn, 
prizing  above  all  things  accuracy,  thoroughness, 
and  candor  in  research,  proud  and  happy,  not 
in  its  own  single  strength,  but  in  the  might  of 
that  host  of  students,  whose  past  conquests  make 
up  the  wondrous  sum  of  present  knowledge, 
whose  sure  future  triumphs  are  shared  in  im 
agination  by  each  humblest  worker.  Within  the 
last  four  hundred  years  this  typical  scientific  mind 
has  gradually  come  to  be  the  kind  of  philosophic 
mind  most  admired  by  the  educated  class;  in 
deed,  it  has  come  to  be  the  only  kind  of  mind, 
except  the  poetic,  which  commands  the  respect  of 
scholars,  whatever  their  department  of  learning. 
In  every  field  of  study,  in  history,  philosophy,  and 
theology,  as  well  as  in  natural  history  and  physics, 
it  is  now  the  scientific  spirit,  the  scientific  method, 
which  prevails.  The  substitution  in  the  esteem  of 
reasonable  men  of  this  receptive,  forereaching 
mind  for  the  dogmatic,  overbearing,  closed  mind, 
which  assumes  that  it  already  possesses  all  essen 
tial  truth  and  is  entitled  to  the  exclusive  interpre 
tation  of  it,  is  a  most  beneficent  result  of  the  study 
of  natural  history  and  physics.  It  is  an  achieve 
ment  which  has  had  much  to  do  with  the  modern 
increase  of  liberty  in  human  society,  liberty  indi 
vidual,  political,  and  religious;  it  is  an  achievement 
of  the  highest  promise  for  the  future  of  the  race. 

The  second  result  which  I  wish  to  specify  is 
the  stupendous  doctrine  of  hereditary  transmission, 

238 


Three  Results  of  the  Scientific  Study  of  Nature 

which,  during  the  past  thirty  years,  or  within  the 
lifetime  of  most  of  those  who  hear  me,  natural  sci 
ence  has  developed  and  enforced  by  observations 
and  comparisons  covering  the  whole  field  of  organ 
ized  life.  This  conception  is  far  from  being  a  new 
one.  Our  race  has  long  practised,  though  fitfully 
and  empirically,  upon  some  crude  and  fragmentary 
forms  of  this  idea.  Tribes,  clans,  castes,  orders  of 
nobility,  and  reigning  families,  are  familiar  illus 
trations  of  the  sway  of  this  idea ;  in  killing,  ban 
ishing,  and  confining  criminals,  mankind  has  in  all 
ages  been  defending  itself  —  blindly,  to  be  sure,  but 
with  effect — against  evils  which  incidentally  flow 
from  hereditary  transmission ;  but  it  has  been  re 
served  for  natural  science  in  this  generation  to 
demonstrate  the  universality  of  this  principle,  and 
its  controlling  influence  upon  the  families,  nations, 
and  races  of  men,  as  well  as  upon  all  lower  orders 
of  animate  beings.  It  is  fitting  that  natural  his 
tory  should  have  given  this  demonstration  to  the 
world ;  for  the  basis  of  systematic  natural  history 
is  the  idea  of  species,  and  the  idea  of  species  is  it 
self  founded  upon  the  sureness  of  hereditary  trans 
mission —  upon  the  ultimate  fact  that  individual 
characteristics  are  inheritable.  As  the  knowledge 
of  heredity,  recently  acquired  by  science,  permeates 
society,  it  will  profoundly  affect  social  customs, 
public  legislation,  and  governmental  action.  It  will 
throw  additional  safeguards  around  the  domestic 
relations ;  enhance  the  natural  interest  in  vigorous 
family  stocks ;  guide  wisely  the  charitable  action  of 
the  community;  give  a  rational  basis  for  penal 

239 


Three  Results  of  the  Scientific  Study  of  Nature 

legislation ;  and  promote  both  the  occasional  pro 
duction  of  illustrious  men  and  the  gradual  im 
provement  of  the  masses  of  mankind.  These 
moral  benefits  will  surely  flow  from  our  genera 
tion's  study  of  heredity. 

Finally,  modern  science  has  discovered  and  set 
forth  the  magnificent  idea  of  the  continuity  of 
;  creation.  It  has  proved  that  the  development  of 
the  universe  has  been  a  progress  from  good  to  bet 
ter —  a  progress  not  without  reactions  and  catas 
trophes,  but  still  a  benign  advance  toward  ever 
higher  forms  of  life  with  ever  greater  capacities 
for  ever  finer  enjoyments.  It  has  laid  a  firm  foun 
dation  for  man's  instinctive  faith  in  his  own  future. 
From  the  sight  and  touch  of  what  the  eternal  past 
has  wrought,  it  deduces  a  sure  trust  in  what  the 
eternal  future  has  in  store. 

And  present  gratitude 
Insures  the  future's  good ; 
And  for  the  things  I  see 
I  trust  the  things  to  be. 

It  has  thus  exalted  the  idea  of  God  —  the  great 
est  service  which  can  be  rendered  to  humanity. 
"  Each  age  must  worship  its  own  thought  of  Grod," 
and  each  age  may  be  judged  by  the  worthiness  of 
that  thought.  In  displaying  the  uniform,  continu 
ous  action  of  unrepenting  nature  in  its  march  from 
good  to  better,  science  has  inevitably  directed  the 
attention  of  men  to  the  most  glorious  attributes  of 
that  divine  intelligence  which  acts  through  nature 
with  the  patience  of  eternity  and  the  fixity  of  all- 

240 


Three  Results  of  the  Scientific  Study  of  Nature 

^^ 


foreseeing  wisdom.  Verily,  the  infinite,  present 
Creator  is  worshiped  in  this  place.  A  hundred 
lifetimes  ago  a  Hebrew  seer  gave  utterance  to  one 
of  the  grandest  thoughts  that  ever  mind  of  man 
conceived ;  but  applied  it  only  to  his  own  little  na 
tion,  and  coupled  it  with  barbarous  denunciation 
of  that  nation's  enemies.  This  thought,  tender  and 
consoling  toward  human  weakness  and  insignifi 
cance  as  a  mother's  embrace,  but  sublime  also  as 
the  starry  heights,  and  majestic  as  the  onward 
sweep  of  ages,  science  utters  as  the  sum  of  all  its 
teachings,  as  the  supreme  result  of  all  its  searching 
and  its  meditation,  and  applies  alike  to  the  whole 
universe  and  to  its  least  atom :  "  The  eternal  G-od 
is  thy  refuge,  and  underneath  are  the  everlasting 
arms." 


241 


THE  HAPPY  LIFE 

ADDRESS 

AT  THE  WOMAN'S  COLLEGE  OF  BALTIMORE,  Nov.  7,   1895 


THE  HAPPY  LIFE 


MY  subject  is,  "The  Happy  Life."  I  address 
here  especially  young  people  who  have  passed 
the  period  of  childhood,  with  its  unreflecting  gaiety, 
passing  shadows,  gusty  griefs,  and  brief  despairs, 
and  have  entered,  under  conditions  of  singular 
privilege,  upon  rational  and  responsible  living. 
For  you,  happinessjmnst 


and  consistent  with  habits  of  .observing,  reading, 
and  reflecting.  Now  reflecting  has  always  been  a 
grave  business, 

"Where  but  to  think  is  to  be  full  of  sorrow 
And  leaden-eyed  despairs," 

and  it  must  be  confessed  that  our  times  present 
some  new  obstacles  to  a  life  of  considerate  happi 
ness  for  people  who  observe  and  read.  A  few  gen 
erations  ago  the  misery  of  the  many  did  not  much 
mar  the  happiness  of  the  few  ;  for  wide  diversities 
of  human  condition  seemed  natural  not  artificial, 
and  fellow-feeling  was  comparatively  undeveloped. 
Until  this  century  the  masses  of  mankind  were  al 
most  dumb;  but  now  their  moans  and  complaints 
have  become  audible  through  telephone,  telegraph, 

16*  ,45 


The  Happy  Life 

and  rotary  press.     The  millions  are  now  saying 
what  the  moody  poets  have  always  said : 

"  The  flower  that  smiles  to-day 

To-morrow  dies. 
All  that  we  wish  to  stay 

Tempts,  and  then  flies. 
What  is  this  world's  delight  ? 
Lightning  that  mocks  the  night, 
Brief  even  as  bright." 

The  gloomy  moralist  is  still  repeating,  "I  have 
seen  all  the  works  that  are  done  under  the  sun,  and 
behold !  all  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit." 

The  manual  laborers  of  to-day,  who  are  much 
better  off  than  the  same  classes  of  laborers  have 
been  in  any  earlier  times,  are  saying  just  what 
Shelley  said  to  the  men  of  England  in  1819 : 

"  The  seed  ye  sow  another  reaps, 
The  wealth  ye  find  another  keeps, 
The  robes  ye  weave  another  wears, 
The  arms  ye  forge  another  bears." 

They  would  adopt  without  change  the  words  in 
which  that  eminent  moralist,  Robinson  Crusoe,  a 
century  earlier,  described  the  condition  of  the  la 
boring  classes:  "The  men  of  labor  spent  their 
strength  in  daily  struggling  for  bread  to  maintain 
the  vital  strength  they  labored  with ;  so  living  in  a 
daily  circulation  of  sorrow,  living  but  to  work,  and 
working  but  to  live,  as  if  daily  bread  were  the  only 
end  of  wearisome  life,  and  a  wearisome  life  the 
only  occasion  of  daily  bread." 

246 


The  Happy  Life 

Matthew  Arnold  calls  his  love  to  come  to  the 
window  and  listen  to  the  "  melancholy,  long-with 
drawing  roar  "  of  the  sea  upon  the  moonlit  beach 
at  Dover ;  and  these  are  his  dismal  words  to  her : 

"  Ah,  love,  let  us  be  true  * 
To  one  another !  for  the  world,  which  seems 
To  lie  before  us  like  a  land  of  dreams, 
So  various,  so  beautiful,  so  new, 
Hath  really  neither  joy,  nor  love,  nor  light, 
Nor  certitude,  nor  peace,  nor  help  for  pain ; 
And  we  are  here  as  on  a  darkling  plain, 
Swept  with,  confused  alarms  of  struggle  and  flight, 
Where  ignorant  armies  clash  by  night." 

The  poets  are  by  no  means  the  only  offenders ; 
the  novelists  and  scientists  take  their  turn.  The 
fiction  of  this  century  deals  much  with  the  lives  of 
the  wretched,  dissolute,  and  vicious,  and  with  the 
most  unjust  and  disastrous  conditions  of  modern 
society. 

A  fresh  difficulty  in  the  way  of  natural  happi 
ness  is  the  highly  speculative  opinion  lately  put 
forward  by  men  of  science  and  promptly  popu 
larized,  to  the  effect  that  external  nature  offsets 
every  good  with  an  evil,  and  that  the  visible  uni 
verse  is  unmoral,  or  indifferent  as  regards  right 
and  wrong,  revealing  no  high  purpose  or  intelli 
gent  trend.  This  is  indeed  a  melancholy  notion; 
but  that  it  should  find  acceptance  at  this  day,  and 
really  make  people  miserable,  only  illustrates  the 
curious  liability  of  the  human  intelligence  to  sud 
den  collapse.  The  great  solid  conviction,  which 

247 


Tbe  Happy  Life 

science  within  the  past  three  centuries  has  enabled 
thinking  men  and  women  to  settle  down  on,  is  that 
all  discovered  and  systematized  knowledge  is  as 
nothing  compared  with  the  undiscovered,  and  that 
a  boundless  universe  of  unimagined  facts  and 
forces  interpenetrates  and  encompasses  what  seems 
the  universe  to  us.  In  spite  of  this  impregnable 
conviction,  people  distress  themselves  because,  for 
sooth,  they  cannot  discern  the  moral  purpose,  or 
complete  spiritual  intent,  of  this  dimly  seen,  frac 
tional  universe  which  is  all  we  know.  Why  should 
they  discern  it  ? 

It  is,  then,  in  spite  of  many  old  and  some  new 
discouragements  that  we  are  all  seeking  the  happy 
life.  We  know  that  education  spreads,  knowledge 
grows,  and  public  liberty  develops ;  but  can  we  be 
sure  that  public  and  private  happiness  increase? 
What  the  means  and  sources  of  happiness  are  in 
this  actual  world,  with  our  present  surroundings, 
and  with  no  reference  to  joys  or  sorrows  in  any 
other  world,  is  a  natural,  timely,  and  wholesome 
inquiry.  We  may  be  sure  that  one  principle  will 
hold  throughout  the  whole  pursuit  of  considerate 
happiness  —  the  principle  that  the  best  way  to  se 
cure  future  happiness  is  to  be  as  happy  as  is  right 
fully  possible  to-day.  To  secure  any  desirable 
capacity  for  the  future,  near  or  remote,  cultivate  it 
to-day.  What  is  the  use  of  immortality  for  a 
person  who  cannot  use  well  half  an  hour?  asks 
Emerson. 

In  trying  to  enumerate  the  positive  satisfactions 
which  an  average  man  may  reasonably  expect  to 

248 


The  Happy  Life 

enjoy  in  this  world,  I,  of  course,  take  no  account 
of  those  too  common  objects  of  human  pursuit, 
wealth,  power,  and  fame;  first,  because  they  do 
not,  as  a  rule,  contribute  to  happiness;  and  sec 
ondly,  because  they  are  unattainable  by  mankind 
in  general.  I  invite  you  to  consider  only  those 
means  of  happiness  which  the  humble  and  obscure 
millions  may  possess.  The  rich  and  famous  are 
too  few  to  affect  appreciably  the  sum  of  human 
happiness.  I  begin  with  the  satisfactions  of  sense. 
Sensuous  pleasures,  like  eating  and  drinking,  are 
sometimes  described  as  animal,  and  therefore  un 
worthy.  It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  men 
are,  in  this  life,  animals  all  through, —  whatever 
else  they  may  be, —  and  that  they  have  a  right  to 
enjoy  without  reproach  those  pleasures  of  animal 
existence  which  maintain  health,  strength,  and  life 
itself.  Familiar  ascetic  and  pessimistic  dogmas 
to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  these  pleasures, 
taken  naturally  and  in  moderation,  are  all  pure, 
honorable,  and  wholesome.  Moreover,  all  attempts 
to  draw  a  line  between  bodily  satisfactions  on  the 
one  hand,  and  mental  or  spiritual  satisfactions  on 
the  other,  and  to  distinguish  the  first  as  beastly  in 
dulgences  and  the  second  as  the  only  pleasures 
worthy  of  a  rational  being,  have  failed  and  must 
fail ;  for  it  is  manifestly  impossible  to  draw  a  sharp 
line  of  division  between  pleasures,  and  to  say  that 
these  are  bodily,  and  those  are  intellectual  or  moral. 
Are  the  pleasures  of  sight  and  hearing  bodily  or 
mental  ?  Is  delight  in  harmony,  or  in  color,  a  pleas 
ure  of  the  sense,  or  of  the  imagination?  What 

249 


The  Happy  Life 

Sort  of  a  joy  is  a  thing  of  beauty  I  Is  it  an  animal 
or  a  spiritual  joy  !  Is  the  delight  of  a  mother  in 
fondling  her  smiling  baby  a  physical  or  a  moral 
delight  ?  But  though  we  cannot  divide  pleasures 
into  animal  and  moral,  unworthy  and  worthy,  we 
can  nevertheless  divide  them  into  lower  and  higher 
pleasures ;  the  lower  those  which,  like  eating  and 
drinking,  prompt  to  the  maintenance  and  repro 
duction  of  life,  and  which  can  be  impaired  or  de 
stroyed  by  prolongation  or  repetition;  the  higher 
those  which,  like  the  pleasures  of  the  eye  or  ear, 
seem  to  be  ends  in  themselves ;  in  the  lower  there 
can  be  destructive  excess,  in  the  higher  excess  is 
impossible. 

Eecognizing  then  that  there  are  higher  pleasures 
than  eating  and  drinking,  let  us  clearly  perceive 
that  three  meals  a  day  all  one's  life  not  only  give 
in  themselves  a  constantly  renewed  innocent  satis 
faction,  but  provide  the  necessary  foundation  for 
all  other  satisfactions.  Taking  food  and  drink  is  a 
great  enjoyment  for  healthy  people,  and  those  who 
do  not  enjoy  eating  seldom  have  much  capacity  for 
enjoyment  or  usefulness  of  any  sort.  Under  ordi 
nary  circumstances  it  is  by  no  means  a  purely 
bodily  pleasure.  We  do  not  eat  alone,  but  in  fam 
ilies,  or  sets  of  friends  and  comrades,  and  the  table 
is  the  best  center  of  friendships  and  of  the  domestic 
affections.  When,  therefore,  a  workingman  says 
that  he  has  worked  all  his  life  to  procure  a  sub 
sistence  for  himself  and  his  family,  he  states  that 
he  has  secured  some  fundamental  satisfactions, 
namely,  food,  productive  employment,  and  family 

250 


The  Happy  Life 

life.  The  satisfaction  of  eating  is  so  completely 
a  matter  of  appetite  that  such  distinction  as  there 
is  between  the  luxurious  and  the  hardy  in  regard 
to  this  enjoyment  is  altogether  in  favor  of  the 
hardy.  Who  does  not  remember  some  rough  and 
perhaps  scanty  meal  in  camp,  or  on  the^  march,  or 
at  sea,  or  in  the  woods,  which  was  infinitely  more 
delicious  than  the  most  luxurious  dinner  during 
indoor  or  sedentary  life  ?  But  that  appetite  de 
pends  on  health.  Take  good  care,  then,  of  your 
teeth  and  your  stomachs,  and  be  ashamed,  not  of 
enjoying  your  food,  but  of  not  enjoying  it.  There 
was  a  good  deal  of  sound  human  nature  in  the 
unexpected  reply  of  the  dying  old  woman  to  her 
minister's  leading  question :  "  Here  at  the  end  of 
a  long  life,  which  of  the  Lord's  mercies  are  you 
most  thankful  for?"  Her  eye  brightened  as  she 
answered,  after  a  moment's  consideration:  "My 
victuals." 

Let  us  count  next  pleasures  through  the  eye. 
Unlike  the  other  senses,  the  eye  is  always  at  work 
except  when  we  sleep,  and  may  consequently  be 
the  vehicle  of  far  more  enjoyment  than  any  other 
organ  of  sense.  It  has  given  our  race  its  ideas  of 
infinity,  symmetry,  grace,  and  splendor;  it  is  a 
chief  source  of  childhood's  joys,  and  throughout 
life  the  guide  to  almost  all  pleasurable  activities. 
The  pleasure  it  gives  us,  however,  depends  largely 
upon  the  amount  of  attention  we  pay  to  the  pic 
tures  which  it  incessantly  sets  before  the  brain. 
Two  men  walk  along  the  same  road  —  one  notices 
the  blue  depths  of  the  sky,  the  floating  clouds,  the 

251 


The  Happy  Life 

opening  leaves  upon  the  trees,  the  green  grass,  the 
yellow  buttercups,  and  the  far  stretch  of  the  open 
fields  —  the  other  has  precisely  the  same  pictures 
on  his  retina,  but  pays  no  attention  to  them.  One 
sees,  and  the  other  does  not  see;  one  enjoys  an 
unspeakable  pleasure,  and  the  other  loses  that 
pleasure  which  is  as  free  to  him  as  the  air.  The 
beauties  which  the  eye  reveals  are  infinitely  various 
in  quality  and  scale ;  one  mind  prefers  the  minute, 
another  the  vast ;  one  the  delicate  and  tender,  an 
other  the  coarse  and  rough;  one  the  inanimate 
things,  another  the  animate  creation.  The  whole 
outward  world  is  the  kingdom  of  the  observant 
eye.  He  who  enters  into  any  part  of  that  king 
dom  to  possess  it  has  a  store  of  pure  enjoyment  in 
life  which  is  literally  inexhaustible  and  immeasur 
able.  His  eyes  alone  will  give  him  a  life  worth 
living. 

Next  comes  the  ear  as  a  minister  of  enjoyment, 
but  next  at  a  great  interval.  The  average  man 
probably  does  not  recognize  that  he  gets  much  plea 
sure  through  hearing.  He  thinks  that  his  ears  are 
to  him  chiefly  a  convenient  means  of  human  inter 
course.  But  let  him  experience  a  temporary  deaf 
ness,  and  he  will  learn  that  many  a  keen  delight 
came  to  him  through  the  ear.  He  will  miss  the  be 
loved  voice,  the  merry  laugh,  the  hum  of  the  city, 
the  distant  chime,  the  song  of  birds,  the  running 
brook,  the  breeze  in  the  trees,  the  lapping  wavelets? 
and  the  thundering  beach ;  and  he  will  learn  that 
familiar  sounds  have  been  to  him  sources  of  pure 
delight  —  an  important  element  in  his  well-being. 

252 


Tbe  Happy  Life 

Old  Isaac  Walton  found  in  the  lovely  sounds  of 
earth  a  hint  of  heaven  — 

How  joyed  my  heart  in  the  rich  melodies 
That  overhead  and  round  me  did  arise ! 
The  moving  leaves  —  the  water's  gentle  flow  — 
Delicious  music  hung  on  every  bough. 
Then  said  I  in  my  heart,  If  that  the  Lord 
Such  lovely  music  on  the  earth  accord ; 
If  to  weak,  sinful  man  such  sounds  are  given, 
Oh !  what  must  be  the  melody  of  Heaven ! 

A  high  degree  of  that  fine  pleasure  which  music 
gives  is  not  within  the  reach  of  all ;  yet  there  are 
few  to  whom  the  pleasure  is  wholly  denied.  To  take 
part  in  producing  harmony,  as  in  part-singing,  gives 
the  singers  an  intense  pleasure  which  is,  doubtless, 
partly  physical  and  partly  mental.  I  am  told  that 
to  play  good  music  at  sight,  as  one  of  several  per 
formers  playing  different  instruments,  is  as  keen  a 
sensuous  and  intellectual  enjoyment  as  the  world 
affords.  These  pleasures  through  the  eye  and  ear 
are  open  in  civilized  society  to  all  who  have  the  will 
to  seek  them,  and  the  intelligence  to  cultivate  the 
faculties  through  which  they  are  enjoyed.  They 
are  quite  as  likely  to  bless  him  who  works  with 
hand  or  brain  all  day  for  a  living,  as  him  who  lives 
inactive  on  his  own  savings  or  on  those  of  other 
people.  The  outward  world  yields  them  sponta 
neously  to  every  healthy  body  and  alert  mind ;  but 
the  active  mind  is  as  essential  to  the  winning  of 
them  as  the  sound  body. 

There  is  one  great  field  of  knowledge,  too  much 
neglected  in  our  schools  and  colleges,  which  offers 

253 


The  Happy  Life 

to  the  student  endless  pleasures  and  occupations 
through  the  trained  and  quickened  senses  of  sight, 
hearing,  and  touch  —  I  mean  the  wide  field  called 
natural  history,  which  comprehends  geography, 
meteorology,  botany,  zoology,  mineralogy,  and  geol 
ogy.  Charles  Darwin,  the  greatest  naturalist  of  this 
century,  said  that  with  natural  history  and  the  do 
mestic  affections  a  man  might  be  truly  happy.  Not 
long  ago  I  was  urging  a  young  naturalist  of  twenty- 
six  to  spend  the  next  summer  in  Europe.  He 
thought  it  was  hardly  right  for  him  to  allow  him 
self  that  indulgence ;  and  when  I  urged  that  the 
journey  would  be  very  enjoyable  as  well  as  profit 
able,  he  replied,  "  Yes,  but  you  know  I  can  be  happy 
anywhere  in  the  months  when  things  are  growing." 
He  meant  that  the  pleasures  of  observation  were 
enough  for  him,  when  he  could  be  out  of  doors. 
That  young  man  was  poor,  delicate  in  health,  and 
of  a  retiring  and  diffident  disposition,  yet  life  was 
full  of  keenest  interest  to  him. 

Our  century  is  distinguished  by  an  ardent  return 
of  civilized  man  to  that  love  of  nature  from  which 
books  and  urban  life  had  temporarily  diverted  him. 
The  poetry  and  the  science  of  our  times  alike  foster 
this  love,  and  add  to  the  delights  which  come  to 
lovers  of  Nature  through  the  senses  the  delights  of 
the  soaring  imagination,  and  the  far-reaching  rea 
son.  In  many  of  our  mental  moods  the  contempla 
tion  of  Nature  brings  peace  and  joy.  Her  patient 
ways  shame  hasty  little  man ;  her  vastnesses  calm 
and  elevate  his  troubled  mind ;  her  terrors  fill  him 
with  awe;  her  inexplicable  and  infinite  beauties 

254 


Tbe  Happy  Life 

with  delight.  Her  equal  care  for  the  least  things 
and  the  greatest  corrects  his  scale  of  values.  He 
cannot  but  believe  that  the  vast  material  frame  of 
things  is  informed  and  directed  by  an  infinite  In 
telligence  and  Will,  just  as  his  little  animal  body  is 
informed  by  his  own  conscious  mind  and  will. 

It  is  apparent  from  what  I  have  said  of  pleasures 
through  the  eye  and  ear,  and  from  contact  with 
nature,  that  a  good  measure  of  out-of-door  life  is 
desirable  for  him  who  would  secure  the  elements 
of  a  happy  life.  The  urban  tendency  of  our  popu 
lation  militates  against  free  access  to  out-of-door 
delights.  The  farmer  works  all  day  in  the  fields, 
and  his  children  wander  at  will  in  the  open  air; 
the  sailor  can  see  at  any  moment  the  whole  hemis 
phere  of  the  heavens  and  the  broad  plain  of  the 
sea ;  but  the  city  resident  may  not  see  a  tree  or  a 
shrub  for  weeks  together,  and  can  barely  discern  a 
narrow  strip  of  sky,  as  he  walks  at  the  bottom  of 
the  deep  ditches  we  call  streets.  The  wise  man, 
whose  work  is  in  the  city  and  in-doors  at  that,  will 
take  every  possible  opportunity  to  escape  into  the 
fresh  air  and  the  open  country.  Certain  good  ten 
dencies  in  this  respect  have  appeared  within  recent 
years.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  people,  who  must 
work  daily  in  compact  cities,  now  live  in  open 
suburbs;  cities  provide  parks  and  decorated  ave 
nues  of  approach  to  parks ;  out-of-door  sports  and 
exercises  become  popular;  safe  country  boarding- 
schools  for  city  children  are  multiplied ;  and  public 
holidays  and  half-holidays  increase  in  number. 
These  are  appreciable  compensations  for  the  disad- 

255 


The  Happy  Life 

vantages  of  city  life.  The  urban  population  which 
really  utilizes  these  facilities  may  win  a  keener  en 
joyment  from  nature  than  the  rural  population,  to 
whom  natural  beauty  is  at  every  moment  accessible. 
The  cultivation  of  mind  and  the  increased  sensi 
bility  which  city  life  develops  heighten  the  delight 
in  natural  beauty.  Moreover,  though  man  destroys 
much  natural  loveliness  in  occupying  any  territory 
for  purposes  of  residence  or  business,  he  also  cre 
ates  much  loveliness  of  grassy  fields  and  banks,  mir 
roring  waters,  perfectly  developed  trees,  graceful 
shrubs,  and  brilliant  flowers.  In  these  days  no 
intelligent  city  population  need  lack  the  means  and 
opportunities  of  frequent  out-of-door  enjoyment. 
Our  climate  is  indeed  rough  and  changeable,  but 
on  the  whole  produces  scenes  of  much  more  various 
beauty  than  any  monotonous  climate ;  while  against 
the  occasional  severity  of  our  weather  artificial 
protection  is  more  and  more  provided.  What  we 
may  wisely  ask  of  our  tailors  and  our  landscape 
architects  is  protection  in  the  open  air  from  the 
extremes  of  heat,  cold,  and  wind.  The  provision 
of  an  equable  climate  in-doors  is  by  no  means 
sufficient  to  secure  either  the  health  or  the  happi 
ness  of  the  people. 

'\  From  the  love  of  nature  we  turn  to  family  love. 
The  domestic  affections  are  the  principal  source  of 
human  happiness  and  well-being.  The  mutual 
loves  of  husband  and  wife,  of  parents  and  children, 
of  brothers  and  sisters,  are  not  only  the  chief 
sources  of  happiness,  but  the  chief  springs  of  ac 
tion,  and  the  chief  safeguards  from  evil.  The 


The  Happy  Life 

young  man  and  the  young  woman  work  and  save 
in  order  that  they  may  be  married  and  have  a  home 
of  their  own;  once  married,  they  work  and  save 
that  they  may  bring  up  well  a  family.  The  supreme 
object  of  the  struggling  and  striving  of  most  men  • 
is  the  family.  One  might  almost  say  that  the  secur 
ity  and  elevation  of  the  family  and  of  family  life 
are  the  prime  objects  of  civilization,  and  the  ulti 
mate  ends  of  all  industry  and  trade.  In  respect 
to  this  principal  source  of  happiness,  the  young 
mechanic,  operative,  clerk,  or  laborer  is  generally 
better  off  than  the  young  professional  man,  inas 
much  as  he  can  marry  earlier.  He  goes  from  the 
parental  roof  to  his  own  roof  with  only  a  short  in 
terval,  if  any,  between.  The  workingman  is  often 
a  grandf ather  before  he  is  fifty  years  old ;  the  pro 
fessional  man  but  seldom.  Love  before  marriage, 
being  the  most  attractive  theme  of  poetry  and  fic 
tion,  gets  a  very  disproportionate  amount  of  atten 
tion  in  literature,  as  compared  with  the  domestic 
affections  after  marriage. 

Concerning  these  normal  domestic  joys,  any  dis 
cerning  person  who  has  experienced  them,  and  has 
been  intimate  with  four  or  five  generations,  will  be 
likely  to  make  three  observations:  In  the  first* 
place,  the  realization  of  the  natural  and  legitimate 
enjoyments  in  domestic  life  depends  upon  the  pos 
session  of  physical  and  moral  health.  Whatever! 
impairs  bodily  vigor,  animal  spirits,  and  good  tem 
per,  lessens  the  chance  of  attaining  to  the  natural, 
domestic  joys  —  joys  which  by  themselves,  without 
any  additions  whatever  except  food  and  steady 

17  257 


Tbe  Happy  Life 

\  work,  make  earthly  life  worth  living.  In  the  see- 
.  ond  place,  they  endure,  and  increase  with  lapse  of 
years ;  the  satisfactions  of  normal  married  life  do 
not  decline,  but  mount.  Children  are  more  and 
more  interesting  as  they  grow  older ;  at  all  stages, 
from  babyhood  to  manhood  and  womanhood  they 
are  to  be  daily  enjoyed.  People  who  think  they/ 
shall  enjoy  their  children  to-morrow,  or  year  afteii 
next,  will  never  enjoy  them.  The  greatest  pleasure 
in  them  comes  late ;  for  as  Hamerton  mentions  in 
his  "  Human  Intercourse,"  the  most  exquisite  satis 
faction  of  the  parent  is  to  come  to  respect  and 
admire  the  powers  and  character  of  the  child. 
Thirdly,  the  family  affections  and  joys  are  the  ulti 
mate  source  of  civilized  man's  idea  of  a  loving 
God  —  an  idea  which  is  a  deep  root  of  happiness 
when  it  becomes  an  abiding  conviction.  They  have 
supplied  all  the  conceptions  of  which  this  idea  is 
the  supreme  essence,  or  infinite  product.  It  de 
serves  mention  here,  that  these  supreme  enjoyments 
of  the  normal,  natural  life  —  the  domestic  joys  — 
are  woman's  more  than  man's;  because  his  func 
tion  of  bread-winning  necessarily  separates  him 
from  his  home  during  a  good  part  of  his  time,  par 
ticularly  since  domestic  or  house  industries  have 
been  superseded  by  factory  methods. 

I  turn  now  to  the  satisfaction  which  comes  from 
physical  exertion,  including  brain-work.  Every 
body  knows  some  form  of  activity  which  gives  him 
satisfaction.  Perhaps  it  is  riding  on  a  horse,  or 
rowing  a  boat,  or  tramping  all  day  through  woods 
or  along  beaches  with  a  gun  on  the  shoulder,  or 

258 


The  Happy  Life 

climbing  a  mountain,  or  massing  into  a  ball  or 
bloom  a  paste  of  sticky  iron  in  a  puddling-furnace 
(that  heaviest  of  labor),  or  wrestling  with  the 
handles  of  the  plunging,  staggering  plough,  or  tug 
ging  at  a  boat's  tiller  when  the  breeze  is  fresh,  or 
getting  in  hay  before  the  shower.  There  is  real 
pleasure  and  exhilaration  in  bodily  exertion,  par 
ticularly  with  companionship  (of  men  or  animals) 
and  competition.  There  is  pleasure  in  the  exertion 
even  when  it  is  pushed  to  the  point  of  fatigue,  as 
many  a  sportsman  knows,  and  this  pleasure  is,  in 
good  measure,  independent  of  the  attainment  of  any 
practical  end.  There  is  pleasure  in  mere  struggle, 
so  it  be  not  hopeless,  and  in  overcoming  resistance, 
obstacles,  and  hardships.  When  to  the  pleasure  of 
exertion  is  added  the  satisfaction  of  producing  a 
new  value,  and  the  further  satisfaction  of  earning 
a  livelihood  through  that  new  value,  we  have  the 
common  pleasurable  conditions  of  productive  labor.  • 
Every  working  man  who  is  worth  his  salt  (I  care 
not  whether  he  works  with  his  hands  and  brains, 
or  with  his  brains  alone)  takes  satisfaction  first  in 
the  working ;  secondly,  in  the  product  of  his  work ; 
and  thirdly,  in  what  that  product  yields  to  him. 
The  carpenter  who  takes  no  pleasure  in  the  mantel 
he  has  made,  the  farm-laborer  who  does  not  care 
for  the  crops  he  has  cultivated,  the  weaver  who 
takes  no  pride  in  the  cloth  he  has  woven,  the  engi 
neer  who  takes  no  interest  in  the  working  of  the 
engine  he  directs,  is  a  monstrosity.  It  is  an  objec 
tion  to  many  forms  of  intellectual  labor  that  their 
immediate  product  is  intangible  and  often  imper- 

259 


Tbe  Happy  Life 

ceptible.    The  fruit  of  mental  labor  is  often  dif 
fused,  remote,  or  subtile.    It  eludes  measurement, 

and  even  observation.    On  the  other  hand,  mental 
i 
/labor  is  more  enjoyable  than  manual  labor  in  the 

f  process.  The  essence  of  the  joy  lies  in  the  doing, 
rather  than  in  the  result  of  the  doing.  There  is  a 
life-long  and  solid  satisfaction  in  any  productive 
labor,  manual  or  mental,  which  is  not  pushed  be 
yond  the  limit  of  strength.  The  difference  between 
the  various  occupations  of  man  in  respect  to  yield 
ing  this  satisfaction  is  much  less  than  people  sup 
pose  ;  for  occupations  become  habitual  in  time,  and 
the  daily  work  in  every  calling  gets  to  be  so  famil 
iar  that  it  may  fairly  be  called  monotonous.  My 
occupation,  for  instance,  offers,  I  believe,  more  va 
riety  than  that  of  most  professional  men;  yet  I 
should  say  that  nine  tenths  of  my  work,  from  day 
to  day,  was  routine  work,  presenting  no  more  nov 
elty,  or  fresh  interest,  to  me  than  the  work  of  a 
carpenter  or  blacksmith  who  is  always  making  new 
things  on  old  types  presents  to  him.  The  Oriental, 
hot-climate  figment  that  labor  is  a  curse  is  contra 
dicted  by  the  experience  of  all  the  progressive  na 
tions.  The  Teutonic  stock  owes  everything  that  is 
great  and  inspiring  in  its  destiny  to  its  faculty  of 
overcoming  difficulties  by  hard  work,  and  of  taking 
heartfelt  satisfaction  in  this  victorious  work.  It  is 
not  the  dawdlers  and  trifiers  who  find  life  worth 
living ;  it  is  the  steady,  strenuous,  robust  workers. 
Once,  when  I  was  talking  with  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes  about  the  best  pleasures  in  life,  he  men 
tioned,  as  one  of  the  most  precious,  frequent  con- 

260 


The  Happy  Life 

tact  with  quick  and  well-stored  minds  in  large 
variety ;  he  valued  highly  the  number,  frequency, 
and  variety  of  quickening,  intellectual  encounters. 
We  were  thinking  of  contact  in  conversation ;  but 
this  pleasure,  if  only  to  be  procured  by  personal 
meetings,  would  obviously  be  within  the  reach,  as 
a  rule,  of  only  a  very  limited  number  of  persons. 
Fortunately  for  us  and  for  posterity,  the  cheap 
printing-press  has  put  within  easy  reach  of  every 
man  who  can  read,  all  the  best  minds  both  of  the 
past  and  the  present.  For  one  tenth  part  of  a 
year's  wages  a  young  mechanic  can  buy,  before  he 
marries,  a  library  of  famous  books  which,  if  he 
masters  it,  will  make  him  a  well-read  man.  For 
half-a-day's  wages  a  clerk  can  provide  himself  with 
a  weekly  paper  which  will  keep  him  informed  for  a 
year  of  all  important  current  events.  Public  libra 
ries,  circulating  libraries,  Sunday-school  libraries, 
and  book-clubs  nowadays  bring  much  reading  to 
the  door  of  every  household  and  every  solitary 
creature  that  wants  to  read.  This  is  a  new  privi 
lege  for  the  mass  of  mankind;  and  it  is  an  inex 
haustible  source  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  nutri 
ment.  It  seems  as  if  this  new  privilege  alone  must 
alter  the  whole  aspect  of  society  in  a  few  genera 
tions.  Books  are  the  quietest  and  most  constant  of 
friends ;  they  are  the  most  accessible  and  wisest  of 
counsellors,  and  the  most  patient  of  teachers.  With 
his  daily  work  and  his  books,  many  a  man,  whom 
the  world  thought  forlorn,  has  found  life  worth  liv 
ing.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  a  great  deal 
of  leisure  is  necessary  for  this  happy  intercourse 
17*  261 


The  Happy  Life 

with  books.  Ten  minutes  a  day  devoted  affection 
ately  to  good  books  —  indeed  to  one  book  of  the 
first  order,  like  the  English  Bible  or  Shakspere, 
or  to  two  or  three  books  of  the  second  order,  like 
Homer,  Virgil,  Milton,  or  Bacon  —  will  in  thirty 
years  make  all  the  difference  between  a  cultivated 
and  an  uncultivated  man,  between  a  man  mentally 
rich  and  a  man  mentally  poor.  The  pleasures  of 
reading  are  of  course  in  good  part  pleasures  of  the 
imagination ;  but  they  are  just  as  natural  and  ac 
tual  as  pleasures  of  sense,  and  are  often  more  ac 
cessible  and  more  lasting. 

In  the  next  place,  I  call  your  attention  to  the  fact 
that  man  is  a  part  of  outward  nature,  and  that  the 
men  and  women  among  whom  our  lot  is  cast  are 
an  important  part  of  our  actual  environment.  In 
some  relation  or  other  to  these  human  beings  we 
perforce  must  stand.  The  question,  in  what  rela 
tion  we  had  better  stand  to  them,  is  a  practical, 
this- world  question,  and  not  a  sentimental  or  next- 
world  question.  Further,  our  sympathetic  feelings, 
over  which  we  have  hardly  more  control  than  we 
have  over  the  beating  of  our  hearts,  go  out  to  our 
fellow-men  more  and  more  widely,  as  better  means 
of  communication  bring  home  to  us  the  joys  and 
sorrows  of  wide-spread  multitudes.  In  what  rela 
tion  is  it  for  our  satisfaction  to  stand  in  this  world 
toward  our  fellow-men  ?  Shall  we  love  or  hate  them, 
bless  or  curse  them,  help  or  hinder  them  ?  These 
•are  not  theoretical  questions  which  arise  out  of  re 
ligious  speculation,  or  some  abstract  philosophy. 
They  are  earthly,  every-day,  concrete  questions,  as 

262 


The  Happy  Life 

intensely  practical  as  the  question,  How  are  we  to 
get  our  daily  bread?  or,  Where  are  we  to  find 
shelter  from  the  snowstorm?  Human  beings  are 
all  about  us ;  we  and  they  are  mutually  dependent 
in  ways  so  complex  and  intricate  that  no  wisdom 
can  unravel  them.  It  is  in  vain  for  us  or  them  to 
say,  "  Let  us  alone,"  for  that  is  a  downright  impos 
sibility.  To  the  question,  How  do  reasonable  men, 
under  these  circumstances,  naturally  and  inevitably 
incline  to  act  toward  their  fellow-beings  ?  there  is 
but  one  common-sense,  matter-of-fact  answer  — 
namely,  They  incline  to  serve,  and  cooperate  with,  \ 
them.  That  civilized  society  exists  at  all,  is  a  dem-  * 
onstration  that  this  inclination  in  the  main  governs 
human  relations.  Every  great  city  is  dependent 
for  food,  drink,  and  fuel  upon  a  few  bridges,  dams, 
canals,  or  aqueducts,  which  a  dozen  intelligent 
human  devils,  armed  with  suitable  explosives  and 
fire-bombs,  could  destroy  in  a  night.  If  the  doc 
trine  of  total  depravity  were  anything  but  the  in 
vention  of  a  morbid  human  imagination,  the  mass 
ing  of  people  by  hundreds  of  thousands  would  be 
too  dangerous  to  be  attempted.  Civilized  society 
assumes  that  the  great  majority  of  men  will  com 
bine  to  procure  advantages,  resist  evils,  defend 
rights,  and  remedy  wrongs.  Following  this  general 
and  inevitable  inclination,  the  individual  finds  that 
by  serving  others  he  best  serves  himself,  because 
he  thus  conforms  to  the  promptings  of  his  own  and 
their  best  nature.  The  most  satisfactory  thing  in  » 
all  this  earthly  life  is  to  be  able  to  serve  our  fellow-  1 
beings  —  first,  those  who  are  bound  to  us  by  ties  of 

263 


The  Happy  Life 

love,  then  the  wider  circle  of  fellow-townsmen,  fel 
low-countrymen,  or  fellow-men.    To  be  of  service  f 
is  a  solid  foundation  for  contentment  in  this  world,  f 
For  our  present  purpose,  it  does  not  matter  where 
we  got  these  ideas  about  our  own  better  nature  and 
its  best  satisfaction ;  it  is  enough  that  our  genera 
tion,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  has  these  ideas,  and  is 
ruled  by  them. 

The  amount  of  service  is  no  measure  of  the  satis 
faction  or  happiness  which  he  who  renders  the  ser 
vice  derives  from  it.  One  man  founds  an  academy 
or  a  hospital ;  another  sends  one  boy  to  be  educated 
at  the  academy,  or  one  sick  man  to  be  treated  at  the 
hospital.  The  second  is  the  smaller  service,  but  may 
yield  the  greater  satisfaction.  Sir  Samuel  Eomilly 
attacked  the  monstrous  English  laws  which  affixed 
the  death  penalty  to  a  large  number  of  petty  of 
fenses  against  property,  like  poaching,  sheep-steal 
ing,  and  pocket-picking.  In  the  dawn  of  a  Feb 
ruary  morning,  when  the  wind  was  blowing  a  gale 
and  the  thermometer  was  below  zero,  Captain  Smith 
of  the  Cuttyhunk  lighthouse  took  three  men  off  a 
wreck  which  the  heavy  sea  was  fast  pounding  to 
pieces  on  a  reef  close  below  the  light.  Sir  Samuel 
Bomilly's  labors  ultimately  did  an  amount  of  good 
quite  beyond  computation ;  but  he  lived  to  see  ac 
complished  only  a  small  part  of  the  beneficent 
changes  he  had  advocated.  The  chances  are  that 
Captain  Smith  got  more  satisfaction  for  the  rest  of 
his  life  out  of  that  rescue,  done  in  an  hour,  than 
Sir  Samuel  out  of  his  years  of  labor  for  a  much- 
needed  reform  in  the  English  penal  code.  There  was 

264 


The  Happy  Life 

another  person  who  took  satisfaction  in  that  rescue 
ever  after,  and  was  entitled  to.  When  day  dawned 
on  that  wintry  morning,  Captain  Smith's  wife,  who 
had  been  listening  restlessly  to  the  roar  of  the  sea 
and  the  wind,  could  lie  still  no  longer.  She  got  up 
and  looked  out  of  the  window.  To  her  horror  there 
was  a  small  schooner  on  the  reef,  in  plain  sight,  one 
mast  fallen  over  the  side,  and  three  men  lashed  to 
the  other  mast.  Her  husband  was  still  fast  asleep. 
Must  she  rouse  him !  If  she  did,  she  knew  he  would 
go  out  there  into  that  furious  sea  and  freezing 
wind.  If  she  waited  only  a  little  while,  the  men 
would  be  dead,  and  it  would  be  of  no  use  to  go. 
Should  she  speak  to  him  ?  She  did.  Oh !  it  is  not 
the  amount  of  good  done  which  measures  the  love 
or  heroism  which  prompted  the  serviceable  deed, 
or  the  happiness  which  the  doer  gets  from  it.  It 
is  the  spirit  of  service  which  creates  both  the  merit 
and  the  satisfaction. 

One  of  the  purest  and  most  enduring  of  human 
pleasures  is  to  be  found  in  the  possession  of  a  good 
name  among  one's  neighbors  and  acquaintances. 
As  Shakspere  puts  it 

The  purest  treasure  mortal  times  afford 
Is  spotless  reputation. 

This  is  not  fame,  or  even  distinction ;  it  is  local  rep 
utation  among  the  few  scores  or  hundreds  of  per 
sons  who  really  know  one.  It  is  a  satisfaction 
quite  of  this  world,  and  one  attained  by  large 
numbers  of  quiet  men  and  women  whose  names 
are  never  mentioned  beyond  the  limits  of  their  re- 

265 


The  Happy  Life 

spective  sets  of  acquaintance.  Such  reputation  re 
gards,  not  mental  power  or  manual  skill,  but  char 
acter;  it  is  slowly  built  upon  purity,  integrity, 
courage,  and  sincerity.  To  possess  it  is  a  crown 
ing  satisfaction  which  is  oftenest  experienced  to 
the  full  rather  late  in  life,  when  some  other  plea 
sures  begin  to  fade  away. 

Lastly,  I  shall  venture  to  call  your  attention  to 
the  importance  —  with  a  view  to  a  happy  life  —  of 
making  a  judicious  selection  of  beliefs.  Here  we 
are  living  on  a  little  islet  of  sense  and  fact  in  the 
midst  of  a  boundless  ocean  of  the  unknown  and 
mysterious.  From  year  to  year  and  century  to 
century  the  islet  expands  as  new  districts  are  suc 
cessively  lifted  from  out  the  encompassing  sea  of 
ignorance,  but  it  still  remains  encircled  by  this 
prodigious  sea.  In  this  state  of  things,  every  in 
quisitive  truth-seeking  human  being  is  solicited  by 
innumerable  beliefs,  old  and  new.  The  past  gen 
erations,  out  of  which  we  spring,  have  been  believing 
many  undemonst rated  and  undemonstrable  things, 
and  we  inherit  their  beliefs.  Every  year  new  be 
liefs  appeal  to  us  for  acceptance,  some  of  them 
clashing  with  the  old.  Everybody  holds  numerous 
beliefs  on  subjects  outside  the  realm  of  knowledge, 
and,  moreover,  everybody  has  to  act  on  these  be 
liefs  from  hour  to  hour.  All  men  of  science  walk 
by  faith  and  not  by  sight  in  exploring  and  experi 
menting,  the  peculiarity  of  their  walk  being  that 
they  generally  take  but  one  step  at  a  time,  and  that 
a  short  one.  All  business  proceeds  on  beliefs,  or 
judgments  of  probabilities,  and  not  on  certainties. 

266 


The  Happy  Life 

The  very  essence  of  heroism  is  that  it  takes  adverse 
chances;  so  that  full  foreknowledge  of  the  issue 
would  subtract  from  the  heroic  quality.  Beliefs, 
then,  we  must  have  and  must  act  on,  and  they  are 
sure  to  affect  profoundly  our  happiness  in  this 
world.  How  to  treat  our  old  beliefs  and  choose  our 
new  ones,  with  a  view  to  happiness,  is  in  these  days 
a  serious  problem  for  every  reflective  person. 

The  first  steps  toward  making  a  calm  choice  are 
to  observe  strictly  the  line  of  demarcation  between 
facts  on  the  one  hand  and  beliefs  on  the  other,  and 
to  hold  facts  as  facts,  and  beliefs  as  nothing  more 
than  beliefs.  Next  we  need  a  criterion  or  touch 
stone  for  beliefs,  old  and  new.  The  surest  touch 
stone  is  the  ethical  standard  which  through  inher 
itance,  education,  and  the  experience  of  daily  life 
has,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  become  our  standard.  It 
is  not  for  our  happiness  to  believe  any  proposition 
about  the  nature  of  man,  the  universe,  or  God, 
which  is  really  at  war  with  our  fundamental  in 
stincts  of  honor  and  justice,  or  with  our  ideals  of; 
gentleness  and  love,  no  matter  how  those  instincts 
and  ideals  have  been  implanted  or  arrived  at.  The 
man  or  woman  who  hopes  to  attain  reflective  hap 
piness,  as  he  works  his  strenuous  way  through  the 
world,  must  bring  all  beliefs,  old  and  new,  to  this 
critical  test,  and  must  reject,  or  refuse  to  entertain, 
beliefs  which  do  not  stand  the  test. 

One  obvious  fact  of  observation  seems  to  contra 
dict  this  correlation  of  beliefs  with  ethical  content, 
and  therefore  with  happiness.  Millions  of  com 
fortable  men  and  women  do,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 

267 


The  Happy  Life 

believe  various  long-transmitted  doctrines  which 
are  clearly  repulsive  to  the  moral  sense  of  the  en 
tire  present  generation.  How  can  this  be  ?  Simply 
because  these  millions  accept  also  antidotal  doc 
trines  which  neutralize  the  natural  effect  of  the 
first  beliefs.  This  process  may  persist  for  genera 
tions  without  affecting  much  the  happiness  of  man 
kind,  but  nevertheless  it  has  its  dangers;  for  if 
faith  in  the  antidotes  be  lost  first,  a  moral  chaos 
may  set  in. 

Sudden  and  solitary  changes  of  belief  are  seldom 
happy.  A  gentle,  gradual  transformation  of  be 
liefs,  in  company  with  kindred,  neighbors,  and 
friends,  is  the  happiest.  Men  have  always  been 
gregarious  in  beliefs ;  if  they  cannot  remain  with 
their  own  herd,  it  will  be  for  their  happiness  to 
join  a  more  congenial  herd  as  quickly  as  possible. 

Of  the  two  would-be  despots  in  beliefs  —  the  des 
pot  who  authoritatively  commands  men  to  believe 
as  he  says,  and  the  despot  who  forbids  men  to  be 
lieve  at  all  —  the  first  is  the  more  tolerable  to  the 
immense  majority  of  mankind.  Under  the  first 
despot  millions  of  people  have  lived  and  now  live 
in  contented  faith;  but  nobody  can  live  happily 
under  the  other.  To  curious,  truth-seeking,  pio 
neering  minds  one  seems  as  bad  as  the  other,  and 
neither  in  any  way  endurable. 

A  certain  deliberation  in  accepting  new  beliefs 
is  conducive  to  happiness,  particularly  if  the  new 
ideas  are  destructive  rather  than  constructive. 
Emerson  recommends  us,  as  a  measure  of  intellec 
tual  economy,  not  to  read  a  book  until  it  is  at  least 

268 


Tbe  Happy  Life 

one  year  old,  so  many  books  disappear  in  a  year. 
In  like  manner,  of  novel  speculative  opinions  all 
but  the  best-built  and  most  buoyant  will  go  under 
within  ten  years  of  their  launching. 

We  may  be  sure  that  cheerful  beliefs  about  the 
unseen  world,  framed  in  full  harmony  with  the 
beauty  of  the  visible  universe,  and  with  the  sweet 
ness  of  domestic  affections  and  joys,  and  held  in 
company  with  kindred  and  friends,  will  illuminate 
the  dark  places  on  the  pathway  of  earthly  life  and 
brighten  all  the  road. 

Having  thus  surveyed  the  various  joys  and  sat 
isfactions  which  may  make  civilized  life  happy  for 
multitudes  of  our  race,  I  hasten  to  admit  that  there 
are  physical  and  moral  evils  in  this  world  which 
impair  or  interrupt  earthly  happiness.  The  worst 
of  the  physical  evils  are  lingering  diseases  and 
untimely  deaths.  I  admit,  too,  that  not  a  few  men 
do,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  lead  lives  not  worth  living. 
I  admit,  also,  that  there  are  dreadful  as  well  as 
pleasing  sights  and  sounds  in  this  world,  and  that 
many  seemingly  cruel  catastrophes  and  destruc 
tions  mark  the  course  of  nature.  Biological  science 
has  lately  impressed  many  people  with  the  preva 
lence  of  cruelty  and  mutual  destruction  in  the  an 
imal  and  vegetable  world.  From  man  down,  the 
creatures  live  by  preying  on  each  other.  Insidious 
parasites  infest  all  kinds  of  plants  and  animals. 
Every  living  thing  seems  to  have  its  mortal  foe. 
The  very  ants  go  to  war,  for  all  the  world  like 
men ;  and  Venus's  Flytrap  (Dionsea)  is  as  cruel  as 

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The  Happy  Life 

a  spider.  So,  human  society  is  riddled  with  mis 
chiefs  and  wrongs,  some,  like  Armenian  massa 
cres,  due  to  surviving  savagery,  and  some,  like 
slums,  to  sickly  civilization.  It  would  seem  im 
possible  to  wring  satisfaction  and  considerate  hap 
piness  from  such  evils.  Yet  that  is  just  what  men 
of  noble  nature  are  constantly  doing.  They  fight 
evil,  and  from  the  contest  win  content,  and  even 
joy.  Nobody  has  any  right  to  find  life  uninterest 
ing,  or  unrewarding,  who  sees  within  the  sphere  of 
his  own  activity  a  wrong  which  he  can  help  to 
remedy,  or  within  himself  an  evil  which  he  can 
hope  to  overcome.  It  should  be  observed  that  the 
inanimate  creation  does  not  lend  itself,  like  the 
animate  creation,  to  the  theory  that  for  every  good 
in  nature  there  is  an  equivalent  evil,  and  for  every 
beautiful  thing  an  ugly  offset.  There  is  no  direct 
offset  to  the  constant  splendor  of  the  heavens  by 
night  or  to  the  transient  glories  of  the  sunset,  no 
drawback  on  the  beauty  of  perfect  form  and  var 
ious  hue  in  crystalline  minerals,  and  no  implicated 
evil  counterbalancing  the  serenity  of  the  mountains 
or  the  sublimity  of  the  ocean.  Even  the  lightning 
and  the  storm  are  wondrously  beautiful. 

Again,  the  existence  of  evils  and  mysteries  must 
not  blind  us  to  the  abounding  and  intelligible  good. 
We  must  remember  that  the  misfortunes  hardest 
to  bear  are  those  which  never  come,  as  Lowell  said. 
We  must  clear  our  minds,  as  far  as  possible,  of  cruel 
imaginings  about  the  invisible  world  and  its  rulers ; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  we  must  never  allow  im 
agined  consolations,  or  compensatory  delights,  in 

270 


The  Happy  Life 

some  other  world  to  reconcile  us  to  the  endurance 
of  resistible  evils  in  this.  "We  must  never  distress 
ourselves  because  we  cannot  fully  understand  the 
moral  principles  on  which  the  universe  is  con 
ducted.  It  would  be  vastly  more  reasonable  in  an 
ant  to  expect  to  understand  the  constitution  of  the 
sun. 

We  must  be  sure  to  give  due  weight,  in  our  minds, 
to  the  good  side  of  every  event  which  has  two  sides. 
A  fierce  northeaster  drives  some  vessels  out  of  their 
course,  and  others  upon  the  ruthless  rocks.  Prop 
erty  and  life  are  lost.  But  that  same  storm  watered 
the  crops'  upon  ten  thousand  farms,  or  filled  the 
springs  which  later  will  yield  to  men  and  animals 
their  necessary  drink.  A  tiger  springs  upon  an 
antelope,  picks  out  the  daintiest  bits  from  the  car 
cass,  and  leaves  the  rest  to  the  jackals.  We  say, 
Poor  little  antelope!  We  forget  to  say,  Happy 
tiger!  fortunate  jackals!  who  were  seeking  their 
meat  from  God,  and  found  it.  A  house  which  stands 
in  open  ground  must  have  a  sunny  side  as  well  as 
a  shady.  Be  sure  to  live  on  the  sunny  side,  and 
even  then  do  not  expect  the  world  to  look  bright, 
if  you  habitually  wear  gray-brown  glasses. 

We  must  assiduously  cultivate  a  just  sense  of 
the  proportion  between  right  and  wrong,  good  and 
evil  in  this  world.  The  modern  newspaper  press  is 
a  serious  obstacle  to  habitual  cheerfulness,  because 
it  draws  constant  attention  to  abnormal  evils  and 
crimes,  and  makes  no  account  of  the  normal  suc 
cesses,  joys,  and  well-doings.  We  read  in  the  morn 
ing  paper  that  five  houses,  two  barns,  three  shops, 

271 


The  Happy  Life 

and  a  factory  have  burned  up  in  the  night,  and  we 
do  not  say  to  ourselves  that  within  the  same  terri 
tory  five  hundred  thousand  houses,  three  hundred 
thousand  barns,  as  many  shops,  and  a  thousand 
factories  have  stood  in  safety.  We  observe  that  ten 
persons  have  been  injured  on  railways  within 
twenty-four  hours,  and  we  forget  that  two  million 
have  traveled  in  safety.  Out  of  every  thousand  per 
sons  in  the  city  of  Cambridge  twenty  die  in  the 
course  of  a  year,  but  the  other  nine  hundred  and 
eighty  live ;  and  of  the  twenty  who  die  some  have 
filled  out  the  natural  span  of  life,  and  others  are 
obviously  unfit  to  live.  Sometimes  our  individual 
lives  seem  to  be  full  of  troubles  and  miseries  —  our 
own,  or  those  of  others.  Then  we  must  fall  back 
on  this  abiding  sense  of  the  real  proportion  be 
tween  the  lives  sorrowful  and  the  lives  glad  at  any 
one  moment,  and  of  the  preponderance  of  gain 
over  loss,  health  over  sickness,  joy  over  sorrow, 
good  over  evil,  and  life  over  death. 

I  shall  not  have  succeeded  in  treating  my  subject 
clearly  if  I  have  not  convinced  you  that  earthly 
happiness  is  not  dependent  on  the  amount  of  one's 
possessions  or  the  nature  of  one's  employment. 
The  enjoyments  and  satisfactions  which  I  have  de 
scribed  are  accessible  to  poor  and  rich,  to  humble 
and  high  alike,  if  only  they  cultivate  the  physical, 
mental,  and  moral  faculties  through  which  the  natu 
ral  joys  are  won.  Any  man  may  win  them  who,  by 
his  daily  labor,  can  earn  a  wholesome  living  for 
himself  and  his  family.  I  have  not  mentioned  a 
single  pleasure  which  involves  unusual  expense,  or 

272 


The  Happy  Life 

the  possession  of  any  uncommon  mental  gifts.  It 
follows  that  the  happiness  of  the  entire  community 
is  to  be  most  surely  promoted,  not  by  increasing 
its  total  wealth  or  even  by  distributing  that  wealth 
more  evenly,  but  by  improving  its  physical  and 
moral  health.  A  poorer  population  may  easily  be 
happier  than  a  richer,  if  it  be  of  sounder  health  and 
morality. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  ask  you  to  consider  whether 
the  rational  conduct  of  life  on  the  this-world  prin 
ciples  here  laid  down  would  differ  in  any  important 
respect  from  the  right  conduct  of  life  on  the  prin 
ciples  of  the  Christian  gospels.  It  does  not  seem 
to  me  that  it  would. 


A  HAPPY  LIFE 

A  TRIBUTE  TO  ASA   GRAY 
READ  AT  THE  AMERICAN  ACADEMY  OF  ARTS  AND  SCIENCES,  JUNE  13,  1888 


A  HAPPY  LIFE 


THE  life  of  Asa  Gray  always  seemed  to  me  a 
singularly  happy  one.  His  disposition  was 
eminently  cheerful,  and  his  circumstances  and  oc 
cupations  gave  fortunate  play  to  his  natural  ca 
pacity  for  enjoyment.  From  opening  manhood 
he  studied  with  keenest  interest  in  a  department 
of  natural  history  which  abounds  in  beauty,  fra 
grance,  and  exquisite  adaptation  of  means  to  ends, 
and  opens  inexhaustible  opportunities  for  origi 
nal  observing,  experimenting,  and  philosophizing, 
For  sixty  years  he  enjoyed  to  the  full  this  elevat 
ing  and  rewarding  pursuit.  These  years  fell  at  a 
most  fortunate  period ;  for  the  continent  was  just 
being  thoroughly  explored  and  its  botanical  treas 
ures  brought  to  light.  Dr.  Gray's  labors  therefore 
cover  the  principal  period  of  discovery  and  of  ac 
curate  classification  in  American  botany.  Merely 
to  have  one's  intellectual  life-work  make  part  of  a 
structure  so  fair  and  lasting  is  in  itself  a  sub 
stantial  happiness. 

His  pursuit  was  one  which  took  him  out-of-doors, 

18* 


A  Happy  Life 

and  made  him  intimate  with  nature  in  all  her 
moods.  It  required  him  to  travel  often,  and  so 
enabled  him  to  see  with  delight  different  lands, 
skies,  and  peoples.  It  gave  him  intellectual  con 
tact  with  many  scholars  of  various  nationalities, 
whose  pursuits  were  akin  to  his  own.  Intellectual 
sympathy  and  cooperation  led  to  strong  friendships 
founded  securely  upon  common  tastes  and  mutual 
services.  All  these  are  elements  of  happiness — 
love  of  nature,  acquaintance  with  the  wide  earth, 
congenial  intercourse  with  superior  minds,  and 
abiding  friendships. 

Although  Dr.  Gray  had  no  children,  his  domestic 
experience  was  unusually  happy.    His  life  illus 
trated  a  remark  of  his  friend  Darwin — that  with 
/  natural  history  and  the  domestic  affections  a  man 
/  can  be  perfectly  happy.     His  way  of  living  was 
/  that  most  agreeable  to  a  philosopher;  for  it  was 
independent,  comfortable,  and  free  alike  from  the 
restrictions  of  poverty  and  the  incumbrances  of 
luxury.     "With  simplicity  and  regularity  of  life 
went  health  and  a  remarkable  capacity  for  labor. 
All  appropriate  honors  came  in  due  course  to 
Dr.  Gray  from  academies,  scientific  associations, 
and  universities  at  home  and  abroad.     The  stream 
began  to  flow  as  early  as  1844,  and  continued  to  the 
end  of  his  life.    With  these  honors  came  the  re 
spect  and  affection  of  hundreds  of  persons  who  were 
devoted  to  the  pursuit  in  which  he  was  a  leader. 
His  reputation  was  larger  than  that  of  a  specialist ; 
he  was  recognized  as  a  clear  thinker  on  philo 
sophical  and  religious  themes,  a  just  and  sagacious 

278 


A  Happy  Life 

critic,  and  a  skilful  and  vigorous  writer.  It  is  the 
greatest  of  human  rewards  to  be  thus  enfolded,  as 
years  advance,  in  an  atmosphere  of  honor,  grati 
tude,  and  love. 

Finally,  Dr.  Gray  enjoyed  the  conscious  satis 
faction  of  having  rendered,  during  his  long  and 
industrious  life,  a  great  and  lasting  service  to  his 
kind.  For  many  years  past  he  could  not  but  know 
that  he  had  made  the  largest  and  most  durable 
contribution  to  American  botanical  science  which 
had  ever  been  made,  and  that  he  had  done  more 
than  any  other  man  to  diffuse  among  his  country 
men  a  knowledge  of  botany  and  a  love  for  it.  He 
knew,  moreover,  that  by  his  own  work,  and  by  the 
interest  which  his  labors  inspired  in  others,  he  had 
placed  on  a  firm  foundation  the  botanical  depart 
ment  of  the  university  which  he  served  for  forty- 
six  years,  and  that  the  collections  he  had  created 
there  would  have  for  generations  a  great  historical 
importance.  To  have  rendered  such  services  was 
solid  foundation  indeed  for  heartfelt  content. 


279 


A  REPUBLICAN  GENTLEMAN 

A   TRIBUTE   TO   MARTIN    BRIMMER 
READ  AT  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY,  FEBRUARY  13,  1896 


A  REPUBLICAN  GENTLEMAN 


MARTIN  BRIMMER,  the  fourth  and  last  of 
the  name  in  this  country,  was  born  on  the 
9th  of  December,  1829.  As  a  boy  he  was  carefully 
educated  at  the  best  schools  and  by  the  best  tutors 
of  the  day ;  and,  like  his  father  and  two  uncles,  he 
graduated  at  Harvard  College.  His  health  was 
somewhat  delicate,  and  lameness  cut  him  off  from 
many  of  the  active  sports  of  boyhood  and  man 
hood.  He  never  had  a  robust  body;  but  it  was 
serviceable  for  the  main  objects  of  living,  and  it 
must  have  had  a  certain  toughness  of  fiber,  for  in 
middle  life  he  recovered  from  two  severe  illnesses, 
and  three  years  ago  from  a  heavy  fall  which  made 
him  seriously  ill  for  many  weeks.  In  spite  of  this 
delicacy  of  body,  no  comrade  of  his  youth  and  no 
witness  of  his  maturer  life  ever  accused  Martin 
Brimmer  of  lack  of  courage,  decision,  or  persis 
tence.  He  was  always  gentle,  but  always  firm. 

His  education  was  prolonged  by  foreign  travel, 
which  he  greatly  enjoyed  and  profited  by  through 
out  life.  His  reading  was  extensive,  and  the  lan- 

283 


A  Republican  Gentleman 

guage  lie  used,  whether  in  conversation  or  in 
writing,  was  pnre  and  accurate.  He  had  a  clear 
English  style  which  gave  effect  to  thoughts  inspired 
by  good  sense  and  good  feeling.  He  read  aloud 
well;  and  this  useful  faculty  gave  weight  to  any 
opinions  or  proposals  for  which  he  desired  to  pro 
cure  the  consent  of  others. 

His  father  died  before  he  graduated  at  Harvard, 
and  from  each  parent  he  inherited  a  considerable 
fortune.  To  the  making  of  money  he  never  had 
occasion  to  give  any  thought,  and  not  much  to  the 
keeping  of  money.  The  pursuit  of  wealth  had  no 
attractions  for  him,  and  that  winning  of  a  liveli 
hood  which  occupies  almost  exclusively  the  time 
and  energy  of  most  men  did  not  enter  at  all  into 
his  experience.  He  was  rich  and  "knew  how  to 
abound."  His  houses  contained  many  precious 
things  —  particularly  the  books  and  pictures  he 
loved.  He  was  an  intelligent  and  discriminating 
patron  of  art,  and  therefore  was  surrounded  at 
home  by  many  objects  delightful  to  the  eye;  but 
in  his  personal  habits  he  was  always  simple,  re 
fined,  and  manly.  Enervating  luxuries  had  no 
allurements  for  him.  He  was  not  tempted  to  ac 
cumulate  money;  on  the  contrary,  he  dispensed 
it  with  extraordinary  generosity  and  judgment. 
His  rich  material  surroundings  were  only  an  inci 
dental  environment  of  his  pure,  lofty,  and  self -for 
getting  life. 

He  was  always  ready  to  render  any  public  ser 
vice  for  which  he  considered  himself  fit.  At  thirty 
years  of  age  he  was  a  representative  in  the  Massa- 

284 


A  Republican  Gentleman 

chusetts  Legislature;  at  thirty-four  he  was  first 
elected  a  Fellow  of  the  Corporation  of  Harvard 
University,  and  at  thirty-five  he  was  a  member  of 
the  State  Senate.  In  1878  he  was  a  candidate  for 
Congress,  but  was  defeated  at  the  election.  Per 
fectly  disinterested  himself  in  all  public  functions, 
he  was  absolutely  incapable  of  appealing  to  inter 
ested  or  corrupt  motives  in  others. 

Of  the  numerous  public  trusts  with  which  he 
was  connected,  the  most  important  were  Harvard 
University  and  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts. 
He  was  a  Fellow  of  the  University  Corporation 
from  1864  to  1868,  a  Member  of  the  Board  of  Over 
seers  from  1870  to  1877,  and  again  a  Fellow  of  the 
Corporation  from  1877  to  his  death.  He  was  presi 
dent  of  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  from  the  organi 
zation  of  the  corporation  in  1870  to  his  death.  He 
was  a  director  in  numerous  charitable  organiza 
tions,  and  a  member  of  innumerable  committees 
organized  for  temporary  public  service ;  and  in  all 
such  labors  his  singular  fairness,  good  temper,  and 
good  judgment  made  him  a  leader  among  his  as 
sociates.  In  contentious  meetings,  his  influence 
was  invaluable.  He  soothed  irritations,  moder 
ated  fanaticisms,  and  made  men  and  women  of 
the  most  incompatible  temperaments  unite  con 
tentedly  in  good  works. 

Of  all  his  public  services,  his  labors  on  behalf  of 
the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  were  the  most  fortunate, 
congenial,  and  productive.  Through  much  study 
and  observation  he  had  acquired  a  real  knowledge 
of  the  fine  arts,  and  an  accurate  and  discriminat- 

285 


A  Republican  Gentleman 

ing  judgment  in  regard  to  pictures,  statuary,  and 
all  other  artistic  objects.  He  believed  ardently  in 
the  refining  and  uplifting  power  of  the  fine  arts, 
and  was  as  well  prepared  as  he  was  eager  to  devote 
himself  to  the  building  up  in  Boston  of  a  worthy 
museum.  For  twenty-five  years  he  inspired  and 
directed  the  work  of  that  institution,  and  to  him  is 
chiefly  due  the  large  measure  of  success  which  the 
Museum  of  Fine  Arts  has  already  attained. 

It  is  apparent  from  this  brief  outline  of  his  labors 
that  Martin  Brimmer  was  generous  indeed  in  giv 
ing  his  time  to  the  public.  He  was  one  of  the  most 
industrious  of  men;  but  his  industry  was  mani 
fested  in  the  discharge  of  public  and  semi-public 
trusts.  He  did  not  work  thus  strenuously  for  him 
self — it  was  always  for  others.  Generous  in  giving 
his  time  to  others,  he  was  equally  generous  in  giving 
his  money.  He  never  withheld  his  name  from  any 
Boston  subscription-paper  in  a  good  cause.  His 
gifts  had  the  most  varied  character,  and,  like  his 
sympathies,  embraced  all  the  agencies  of  education, 
religion,  and  charity  within  his  knowledge.  His 
benefactions  were  distributed  all  over  our  country. 
Under  a  calm  manner,  there  burned  steady  enthu 
siasms  which  inspired  many  of  his  habitual  or  oc 
casional  activities.  When  the  struggle  to  make 
Kansas  a  slave  State  was  going  on,  Martin  Brimmer 
contributed  freely  to  the  support  of  the  men  who 
were  determined  to  make  it  a  free  State,  by  force  if 
necessary ;  but  perceiving  the  gravity  of  the  situa 
tion,  he  went  to  Kansas  to  satisfy  himself  on  the 
spot  of  the  real  conditions  of  the  struggle.  In  the 

286 


A  Republican  Gentleman 

efforts  to  aid  and  protect  the  Freedmen  after  the 
Civil  War,  he  took  a  spontaneous  and  hearty 
interest. 

He  was  warmly  attached  to  the  principles  of  reli 
gions  toleration;  and  in  active  defense  of  those 
principles  he  exerted  himself  repeatedly  —  Hugue 
not  though  he  was  by  descent  —  to  defeat  fanatical 
attempts  to  exclude  all  Catholics  from  the  Boston 
School  Committee.  He  was  a  regular  attendant  at 
the  services  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  a 
generous  contributor  in  every  sense  to  its  support, 
and  interested  in  its  legislation  and  its  policy ;  but 
in  his  noble  nature  there  was  nothing  of  the  parti- 
zan  or  the  fanatic,  and  in  all  public  affairs,  and  in 
all  the  trusts  with  which  he  was  connected,  he  was 
a  consistent  supporter  of  an  undenominational 
policy.  In  the  largest  sense  he  was  a  man  of 
liberal  mind. 

In  spite  of  some  grievous  disappointments  and 
bereavements,  Mr.  Brimmer  had  an  unusually  happy 
life.  His  contemporaries  thought  him  quiet  and 
serious  in  youth;  but  as  life  advanced  he  grew 
gayer,  until,  in  his  later  years,  he  visibly  enjoyed 
all  cheerful  and  improving  human  intercourse.  His 
marriage  was  one  of  rare  felicity ;  the  coming  into 
his  home  of  four  orphaned  children  of  his  wife's 
brother  brought  him  somewhat  late  in  life  new  do 
mestic  joys,  if  also  new  cares;  and,  as  he  grew 
older,  he  could  not  but  be  sensible  of  the  respect 
and  confidence  with  which  all  classes  of  people 
regarded  him. 

With  his  death  his  family  name  becomes  extinct. 

287 


A  Republican  Gentleman 

All  the  more,  it  is  the  duty  of  the  friends  who  sur 
vive  him  to  tell  and  enforce  the  lesson  of  his  life 
for  the  benefit  of  the  rising  generation.  Here  was 
a  rich  man  who  was  neither  indolent  nor  self-in 
dulgent  ;  a  man  who  had  the  means  of  giving  him 
self  to  the  lower  pleasures  of  life,  and  who  sought 
only  the  higher ;  a  man  of  leisure  who  was  always 
laborious  and  serviceable ;  a  man  of  delicate  body 
who  was  as  brave  and  resolute  as  he  was  gentle ;  a 
man  who,  living,  illustrated  all  the  virtues  and 
graces  of  friend,  husband,  counselor,  citizen,  and 
public  servant,  and,  dying,  left  behind  him  no 
memory  of  look,  thought,  or  deed  that  is  not  fra 
grant  and  blessed. 


288 


PRESENT  DISADVANTAGES  OF 
RICH  MEN 

SPEECH 

AT  THE  UNITARIAN  CLUB,  BOSTON,  JANUARY  5,  1893 


19 


PRESENT  DISADVANTAGES  OF 
RICH  MEN 


I  OFTEN  feel  sorry  for  rich  men  in  our  day. 
They  deserve  a  great  deal  of  commiseration  in 
our  community ;  for  they  have  lost  a  good  many  of 
the  favoring  chances  that  rich  men  had  in  other 
times.  The  rich  men  of  former  centuries  and  other 
countries  were  soldiers,  magistrates,  great  land 
owners,  and  great  stockowners ;  they  could  not  be 
rich  on  any  other  terms.  They  were  necessarily 
called  to  the  discharge  of  great  public  duties.  They 
had  to  take  their  lives  in  their  hands  when  frequent 
war  came  upon  their  country.  They  shared  with 
their  tenants,  or  clansmen,  or  retainers  the  dangers 
of  battle.  They  always  bore  great  charges  in  the 
maintenance  Of  estates,  only  a  part  of  which  they 
privately  enjoyed.  They  always  had  severe  labors 
as  magistrates. 

All  these  chances  of  commending  themselves  to 
the  community  the  rich  men  of  to-day  have  lost. 
It  is  a  change  in  the  organization  of  society  which 
has  deprived  them  of  these  privileges.  It  has  de- 

291 


Present  Disadvantages  of  Ricb  Men 

prived  the  young  rich — the  young  men  who  inherit 
riches  —  of  a  great  many  of  the  opportunities  of 
service  which,  on  the  whole,  endeared  their  like  to 
the  feudal  societies.  Even  now,  when  we  see  the 
English  dandies  parading  on  Piccadilly,  or  riding  in 
Rotten  Eow,  in  the  middle  of  the  working  day,  we 
have  to  remember  that  a  fair  proportion  of  those 
young  fellows  are  liable  at  any  hour  to  be  ordered 
off  on  her  Majesty's  service,  with  sword  by  the  side, 
risking  their  lives  for  the  honor  of  England.  There 
are  no  such  chances  for  the  rich  American  youth 
to-day.  They  are  in  danger  of  leading  soft,  luxur 
ious  lives. 

Again,  I  observe  that  the  life  of  the  rich  man 
who  has  made  his  money,  and  is  a  little  out  of  the 
struggle  to  get  more,  becomes  dull,  monotonous, 
and  uninteresting;  and  that  the  young  men  who 
inherit  money  often  find  life  a  terrible  bore.  It  is 
that  very  class  of  people  that  of  tenest  ask  Mallock's 
question,  "  Is  life  worth  living  ?  w  It  is  the  people 
who  do  not  have  to  work  for  their  own  livelihood 
and  that  of  their  families  who  most  frequently  ask 
that  question.  I  remember  that  Mallock's  book 
was  lying  on  the  transom  in  a  yacht  I  used  to  sail, 
when  we  cabin  folks  went  ashore  one  afternoon  to 
take  a  walk ;  and  the  steward  picked  up  the  red- 
covered  book,  read  its  title,  "  Is  Life  Worth  Liv 
ing  1 "  and  turned  its  pages.  That  man  was  away 
from  his  family  nine  months  in  the  year.  Three 
months  he  spent  in  what  he  considered  a  state  of 
great  ease  and  enjoyment  on  board  the  yacht;  six 
months  he  went  as  mate  in  a  coaster — a  very  hard 

292 


Present  Disadvantages  of  Ricb  Men 

life.  Only  three  months,  in  mid-winter,  did  he 
spend  at  home.  He  did  not  earn  more  than  six 
hundred  dollars  a  year.  His  people  were  poor  — 
all  of  them.  But  when  we  cabin  folks  came  on 
board  again,  he  took  one  of  my  sons  aside,  and 
asked,  "What  sort  of  a  man  wrote  this  book?" 
My  son  tried  to  explain  what  sort  of  a  person  Mr. 
Mallock  was.  "  Well,"  said  the  steward,  "  he  must 
be  '  loony ' !  No  man  in  his  senses  could  ask  that 
question."  That  is  the  state  of  mind  of  most  men 
who  work  hard  for  their  living.  It  is  your  young 
fellow  who  has  much  money  in  the  bank  and  more 
in  bonds  who  doubts  the  worth  of  living.  It  is  a 
miserable  question  to  ask :  the  man  who  asks  it  is 
in  a  wretched,  unnatural  state  of  mind. 

It  seems  to  me,  too,  that  our  rich  men  have  lost 
great  pleasures  which  the  rich  men  of  other  times 
used  to  enjoy.  It  is  a  great  pleasure,  for  instance, 
and  a  very  honorable  pleasure,  in  my  opinion,  to 
maintain  generously  and  handsomely  a  fine  family 
estate  in  the  country,  with  all  the  old  trees  and 
noble  animals  that  should  adorn  it  —  an  estate 
which  has  been,  and  is  to  be,  transmitted  in  the 
same  family  from  generation  to  generation.  How 
many  men  have  that  satisfaction  in  this  country, 
the  richest  country  in  the  world?  Very  few.  I 
believe  I  know  two  men  who  live  on  their  grand 
father's  places  in  the  country  —  only  two.  We  cut 
up  our  great  estates,  and  sell  them  for  house-lots  if 
we  can.  We  part  with  them ;  we  move  away  from 
them ;  we  give  up  the  care  of  them.  We  do  not  '  ** 
maintain  and  beautify  them,  either  for  our  chil 
is*  293 

\ 


Present  Disadvantages  of  Rich  Men 

dren  or  for  the  public  enjoyment.  You  and  I 
never  can  own  great  estates;  and  we  miss  that 
lesser  enjoyment,  which  is  common  in  Europe, 
namely,  the  sight  of  great  estates  which  rich  men 
maintain, — the  splendid  parks,  the  beautiful  lawns, 
the  rich  gardens,  and  noble  mansions  which  rich 
men  in  feudal  societies  maintained  for  the  enjoy 
ment  of  their  fellow-men,  as  well  as  for  their  own. 
I  wish  we  might  see  some  of  these  customs  develop 
in  our  own  land.  If  I  cannot  own  a  pair  of  hand 
some  horses  myself,  I  want  to  see  somebody  else 
owning  and  driving  them.  The  sight  of  appropriate 
and  durable  splendor  is  a  great  enjoyment  for  all 
who  look  on  it.  But  these  things  must  be  of  very 
slow  growth  in  our  democratic  society. 

Yet  we  are  going  to  have  rich  men,  I  believe, 
and  richer  men  than  ever.  The  continuous  devel 
opment  of  very  rich  men  is  a  necessary  conse 
quence  of  the  freedom  and  equality  before  the  law 
that  we  all  propose  to  enjoy.  I  do  not  believe  that 
any  legislative  body,  or  any  social  philosopher,  can 
prevent  the  coming  up  of  rich  men,  unless  we  all 
agree  that  we  will  no  longer  attempt  to  enjoy  en 
tire  freedom  and  perfect  equality  before  the  law. 
Given  the  freedom,  the  natural  money-getters  will 
make  fortunes.  Therefore  I  do  not  believe  that 
any  method  of  distribution,  or  even  dissipation,  of 
wealth  will  succeed  in  preventing,  in  this  coun 
try,  the  constant  rise  of  very  rich  men.  Moreover, 
do  we  not  all  see  a  new  condition  of  things  which 
tends  to  the  preservation  of  a  rich  class  ?  When  I 
was  a  boy,  it  was  not  the  custom,  among  the  gen- 

294 


Present  Disadvantages  of  Rich  Men 

eration  preceding  mine,  to  secure  property  to 
women  when  they  were  married;  it  was  not  the 
custom  to  settle  estates  on  women  and  minors. 
The  agencies  to  secure  the  faithful  execution  of 
such  trusts  were  hardly  created.  But  now  there 
are  many  agencies  for  the  execution  of  just  such 
trusts — mostly  created  within  sixty  years.  In  con 
sequence,  it  is  a  great  deal  easier  than  it  used  to 
be  to  keep  safe  money  once  made,  or  money  which 
the  creator  of  a  great  property  desires  to  transmit ' 
to  his  children.  And  this  safety  in  keeping  is 
going  to  increase  —  for  it  is  one  of  the  results  of  a 
more  perfect  civilization.  This  means  a  great  deal 
morally :  it  means  fidelity  and  carefulness,  and  the 
power  to  procure  this  fidelity  and  careful  ability  in 
the  interest  of  persons  themselves  incompetent  to 
preserve  great  estates.  That  is  going  to  be  more 
and  more  possible  in  our  country;  and  therefore 
we  are  going  to  see,  in  my  judgment,  more  and 
more  families  in  which  wealth  is  transmitted.  I 
look,  therefore,  for  no  decrease  in  the  rich  class, 
but  rather  for  an  increase. 

The  remedy  for  the  difficulties  which  encompass 
this  whole  problem  of  great  wealth,  it  seems  to  me, 
has  been  already  indicated.  It  was  indicated  by  the 
essayist  of  the  evening :  it  is  contained  in  the  word 
service  —  in  the  desire  and  purpose  to  be  of  service. 
It  was  indicated,  also,  by  Professor  Giddings  when 
he  said  that  the  cure  is  in  setting  up  true  ideals  — 
in  the  recognition  of  wealth  as  a  means,  and  not 
an  end.  This  remedy  must  be  procured  through 
education  —  home  education,  school  and  college 

295 


Present  Disadvantages  of  Rich  Men 

education,  and  church  education.  The  main  doc 
trine  of  the  New  Testament,  as  a  whole,  is  that 
loving  service  leads  to  happiness  and  safety  —  for 
the  individual,  to  what  we  call  heaven;  for  so 
ciety,  to  what  we  call  the  kingdom  of  Grod. 


296 


THE  EXEMPTION  FROM  TAXATION 

OF  CHURCH   PROPERTY,    AND   THE    PROPERTY   OF    EDUCA 
TIONAL,  LITERARY,  AND   CHARITABLE  INSTITUTIONS 


THE  EXEMPTION  FROM  TAXATION1 


THE  property  which  has  been  set  apart  for  re 
ligious,  educational,  and  charitable  uses  is  not 
to  be  thought  of  or  dealt  with  as  if  it  were  private 
property;  for  it  is  completely  unavailable  for  all 
the  ordinary  purposes  of  property,  so  long  as  the 
trusts  endure.  It  is  like  property  of  a  city  or  State 
which  is  essential  for  carrying  on  the  work  of  the 
city  or  State,  and  so  cannot  be  reckoned  among  the 
public  assets;  it  is  irrecoverable  and  completely 
unproductive.  The  capital  is  sunk,  so  to  speak,  just 
as  the  cost  of  a  sewer  or  a  highway  is  capital  sunk. 
There  is  a  return,  both  from  a  church  or  a  college, 

i  CAMBRIDGE,  December  12,  1874. 
To  the  Commissioners  of  the  Commonwealth,  appointed  "  to  inquire  into 

tlie  expediency  of  revising  and  amending  tlie  laws  of  the  State  relating 

to  taxation  and  the  exemptions  therefrom"  :  — 

GENTLEMEN  :  —  In  accordance  with  a  request  contained  in  a  letter 
of  October  14,  1874,  from  Prof.  J.  H.  Seelye,  that  I  lay  before  your 
Commission  my  "  views  respecting  the  present  exemption  from  tax 
ation  of  property  used  for  religious,  educational,  and  charitable  pur 
poses,"  I  respectfully  present  for  your  consideration  the  following 
paper.  Your  obedient  servant, 

CHARLES  W.  ELIOT. 

299 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

and  from  a  sewer  or  a  highway,  in  the  benefit  se 
cured  to  the  community;  but  the  money  which 
built  them  is  no  longer  to  be  counted  as  property, 
in  the  common  sense.  It  can  never  again  be  pro 
ductive,  except  for  the  purposes  of  the  trust  for 
which  it  was  set  apart. 

When  a  new  road  is  made  where  there  was  none, 
the  State,  or  some  individual,  sacrifices  the  value  of 
the  land  it  covers,  and  the  money  spent  in  build 
ing  the  road.  It  also  sacrifices  the  opportunity  to 
tax,  in  the  future,  the  improvements  which  might 
have  been  put  upon  that  land  if  it  had  not  been  con 
verted  into  a  road,  and  all  the  indirect  taxable  bene 
fits  which  might  have  been  derived  from  the  use 
for  productive  purposes  of  the  land,  and  of  the 
money  which  the  road  cost.  When  a  church,  or  a 
college,  or  a  hospital,  buys  land,  and  erects  build 
ings  thereon,  the  State  does  not  sacrifice  the  value 
of  the  land,  or  the  money  spent  upon  the  buildings; 
private  persons  make  these  sacrifices ;  but  the  State 
does  sacrifice,  by  the  exemption  statute,  the  oppor 
tunity  to  tax,  in  the  future,  the  improvements  which 
might  have  been  put  upon  that  land  if  it  had  not 
been  converted  to  religious,  educational,  or  chari 
table  uses,  and  all  the  indirect  taxable  benefits 
which  might  have  been  derived  from  the  use  for 
productive  purposes  of  the  land,  and  of  the  money 
which  the  buildings  cost. 

This  is  the  precise  burden  of  the  exemption  upon 
the  State.  Why  does  the  State  assume  it  ?  For  a 
reason  similar  to,  though  much  stronger  than,  its 
reason  for  building  a  new  road  and  losing  that  area 

300 


Tbe  Exemption  From  Taxation 

forever  for  taxation.  The  State  believes  that  the 
new  road  will  be  such  a  convenience  to  the  commu 
nity,  that  the  indirect  gain  from  making  it  will  be 
greater  than  the  direct  and  indirect  loss.  In  the 
same  way  the  State  believes,  or  at  least  believed 
when  the  exemption  statute  was  adopted,  that  the 
indirect  gain  to  its  treasury  which  results  from  the 
establishment  of  the  exempted  institutions  is  greater 
than  the  loss  which  the  exemption  involves.  If  this 
belief  is  correct,  in  the  main,  though  not  perhaps 
universally  and  always,  the  exemption  can  hardly 
be  described  as  a  burden  to  the  State  at  large. 

The  parallel  between  a  sewer  or  a  highway,  on\ 
the  one  hand,  and  land  and  buildings  of  exempted 
institutions,  on  the  other,  may  be  carried  a  little 
farther  with  advantage.  The  abutters  often  pay  a 
part  of  the  cost  of  the  sewer  or  the  highway  which 
passes  their  doors,  because  it  is  of  more  use  to  them 
than  to  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants,  and  the  mem 
bers  of  the  religious,  educational,  or  charitable  so 
ciety  erect  their  necessary  buildings  and  pay  for 
their  land  themselves.  If  it  be  granted  that  the 
religious,  educational,  or  charitable  use  is  a  public 
use,  like  the  use  of  a  sewer  or  a  highway,  there  is 
no  more  reason  for  taxing  the  church,  the  academy, 
or  the  hospital,  than  for  annually  taxing  the  abut 
ters  on  a  sewer  or  a  highway  on  the  cost  of  that 
sewer  or  on  the  cost  of  the  highway  and  its  value 
considered  as  so  many  feet  of  land,  worth,  like  the 
adjoining  lots,  so  many  dollars  a  foot.  The  com 
munity  is  repaid  for  the  loss  of  the  taxable  capital 
sunk  in  the  sewer  by  the  benefit  to  the  public 

301 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

health,  and  the  resulting  enhancement  of  the  value 
of  all  its  territory.  In  like  manner,  it  is  repaid  for 
the  loss  of  the  capital  set  apart  for  religious,  educa 
tional,  and  charitable  uses,  by  the  increase  of  mo 
rality,  spirituality,  intelligence,  and  virtue,  and  the 
general  well-being  which  results  therefrom.  To  tax 
lands,  buildings,  or  funds  which  have  been  devoted 
to  religious  or  educational  purposes  would  be  to 
divert  money  from  the  highest  public  use  —  the 
promotion  of  learning  and  virtue  —  to  some  lower 
public  use,  like  the  maintenance  of  roads,  prisons 
or  courts,  an  operation  which  cannot  be  expedient 
until  too  large  an  amount  of  property  has  been  de 
voted  to  the  superior  use.  This  is  certainly  not 
the  case  in  Massachusetts  to-day.  The  simple  rea 
sons  for  the  exemption  of  churches,  colleges,  and 
hospitals  from  taxation  are  these:  first,  that  the 
State  needs  those  institutions ;  and  secondly,  that 
experience  has  shown  that  by  far  the  cheapest  and 
best  way  in  which  the  State  can  get  them  is  to  en 
courage  benevolent  and  public-spirited  people  to 
provide  them  by  promising  not  to  divert  to  inferior 
public  uses  any  part  of  the  income  of  the  money 
which  these  benefactors  devote  to  this  noblest  pub 
lic  use.  The  statute  which  provides  for  the  exemp 
tion  is  that  promise. 

Exemption  from  taxation  is  not  then  a  form  of 
State  aid,  in  the  usual  sense  of  those  words ;  it  is 
an  inducement  or  encouragement  held  out  by  the 
State  to  private  persons,  or  private  corporations, 
to  establish  or  maintain  institutions  which  are  of 
benefit  to  the  State.  The  answer  to  the  question, 

302 


Tbe  Exemption  From  Taxation 

— Why  should  the  State  give  encouragement,  in 
any  form,  to  private  corporations  which  support 
churches,  academies,  colleges,  hospitals,  asylums, 
and  similar  institutions  of  learning,  advanced  edu 
cation,  and  public  charity? — involves,  therefore,  an 
exposition  of  the  public  usefulness  of  these  corpora 
tions.  I  say  advanced  education,  because  the  lower 
grades  of  education  are  already  provided  for  at  the 
public  charge,  and  there  seems  to  be  little  disposi 
tion  to  question  the  expediency  and  rightf  ulness  of 
this  provision. 

The  reason  for  treating  these  institutions  in  an 
exceptional  manner  is,  that  having  no  selfish  ob 
ject  in  view,  or  purpose  of  personal  gain,  they  con 
tribute  to  the  welfare  of  the  State.  Their  function 
is  largely  a  public  function ;  their  work  is  done  pri 
marily,  indeed,  for  individuals,  but  ultimately  for 
the  public  good.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  of 
churches  and  colleges  that  they  contribute  to  the 
welfare  of  a  State ;  they  are  necessary  to  the  exis-^ 
tence  of  a  free  State.  They  form  and  mold  the 
public  character ;  and  that  public  character  is  the 
foundation  of  everything  which  is  precious  in 
the  State,  including  even  its  material  prosperity.. 
To  develop  noble  human  character  is  the  end  for 
which  States  themselves  exist,  and  civil  liberty  is 
not  a  good  in  itself,  but  only  a  means  to  that  good 
end.  The  work  of  churches  and  institutions  of 
education  is  a  direct  work  upon  human  character. 
The  material  prosperity  of  every  improving  com 
munity  is  a  fruit  of  character ;  for  it  is  energetic, 
honest,  and  sensible  men  that  make  prosperous 

303 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

business,  and  not  prosperous  business  that  makes 
men.  Who  have  built  up  the  manufactures  and 
trade  of  this  bleak  and  sterile  Massachusetts?  A 
few  men  of  singular  sagacity,  integrity  and  cour 
age,  backed  by  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  and 
women  of  common  intelligence  and  honesty.  The 
roots  of  the  prosperity  are  in  the  intelligence,  cour 
age  and  honesty.  Massachusetts  to-day  owes  its 
mental  and  moral  characteristics,  and  its  wealth, 
to  eight  generations  of  people  who  have  loved  and 
cherished  Church,  School,  and  College. 

The  public  services  of  these  institutions  can 
hardly  need  to  be  enlarged  upon.  A  single  sen 
tence  may  be  given  to  the  utility  of  that  class  of 
institutions  which  I  may  be  supposed  to  speak  for 
— the  institutions  of  advanced  education  —  the 
academies,  colleges,  scientific  and  technical  schools, 
professional  schools  and  seminaries,  art  collections 
and  museums  of  natural  history.  All  the  profes 
sions  called  learned  or  scientific  are  fed  by  these 
institutions;  the  whole  school-system  depends  upon 
them,  and  could  not  be  maintained  in  efficiency 
without  them ;  they  foster  piety,  art,  literature,  and 
poetry;  they  gather  in  and  preserve  the  intellec 
tual  capital  of  the  race,  and  are  the  storehouses  of 
the  acquired  knowledge  on  which  invention  and 
progress  depend;  they  enlarge  the  boundaries  of 
knowledge ;  they  maintain  the  standards  of  honor, 
public  duty,  and  public  spirit,  and  diffuse  the  re 
finement,  culture,  and  spirituality  without  which 
added  wealth  would  only  be  added  grossness  and 
corruption. 

304 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

Such  is  the  absolute  necessity  of  the  public  work 
which  the  institutions  of  religion,  education,  and 
charity  do,  that  if  the  work  were  not  done  by  these 
private  societies,  the  State  would  be  compelled  to 
carry  it  on  through  its  own  agents,  and  at  its  own 
charge.  In  all  the  civilized  world,  there  are  but 
two  known  ways  of  supporting  the  great  institu 
tions  of  religion,  high  education,  and  public  char 
ity.  The  first  and  commonest  way  is  by  direct 
annual  subsidies  or  appropriations  by  government; 
the  second  way  is  by  means  of  endowments.  These 
two  methods  may  of  course  be  combined.  An  en 
dowment,  in  this  sense,  is  property,  once  private, 
which  has  been  consecrated  forever  to  public  uses. 
If,  in  one  generation,  a  group  of  people  subscribe 
to  buy  a  piece  of  land,  and  build  a  church  thereon, 
that  church  is  an  inalienable  endowment  for  the 
benefit  of  succeeding  generations.  It  cannot  be  di 
verted  from  religious  uses,  or  ever  again  become 
piivate  property.  If  a  private  person  bequeath 
$50,000  with  which  to  maintain  six  free  beds 
for  Boston  sick  or  wounded  in  the  Massachu 
setts  General  Hospital,  which  is  an  institution 
supported  by  endowments,  that  beneficent  act  ob 
viates  forever  the  necessity  of  maintaining  six  beds 
at  the  Boston  City  Hospital,  which  is  an  institution 
supported  by  direct  taxation.  If,  by  the  sacrifices 
of  generous  and  public-spirited  people  in  seven 
generations,  Harvard  University  has  gradually 
gathered  property  which  might  now  be  valued  at 
five  or  six  millions  of  dollars,  the  State  of  Massa 
chusetts  is  thereby  saved  from  an  annual  expendi- 

305 


Tbe  Exemption  From  Taxation 

tare  of  three  or  four  hundred  thousand  dollars  for 
the  purpose  of  maintaining  the  liberal  arts  and 
professions ;  unless,  indeed,  the  people  of  the  State 
should  be  willing  to  leave  the  work  of  the  univer 
sity  undone.  To  the  precise  extent  of  the  work 
done  by  the  income  of  endowments  is  the  State  re 
lieved  of  what  would  otherwise  be  its  charge.  If 
some  benevolent  private  citizen  had  built  with  his 
own  money  the  State  Lunatic  Hospitals,  the  State 
would  have  been  relieved  of  a  very  considerable 
charge.  To  tax  such  endowments  is  to  reduce  the 
good  work  done  by  them,  and  therefore  to  increase 
the  work  to  be  done  by  direct  appropriation  of 
government  money,  unless  the  people  are  willing 
to  accept  the  alternative  of  having  less  work  of  the 
kind  done.  If  the  State  wants  the  work  done,  it 
has  but  two  alternatives  —  it  can  do  it  itself,  or  it 
can  encourage  and  help  benevolent  and  public- 
spirited  individuals  to  do  it.  There  is  no  third 
way. 

The  above  argument  in  favor  of  the  exemption 
of  institutions  of  religion,  education,  and  charity 
from  taxation  being  conclusive  unless  it  can  be 
rebutted,  I  propose  to  consider  successively  the 
various  attempts  which  have  been  made  to  repel 
or  evade  it. 

The  first  objection  which  I  propose  to  consider 
would  be  expressed  somewhat  in  this  fashion  by 
one  who  felt  it :  "I  admit  that  churches,  colleges, 
and  hospitals  are  useful,  and  I  do  not  wish  to  see 
their  good  work  diminished ;  but  these  institutions 
get  the  benefit  of  schools,  police,  roads,  street  lamps, 

306 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

prisons,  and  courts,  and  should  help  to  support 
them;  their  friends  and  supporters  are  generous, 
and  will  more  than  make  good  what  the  institu 
tions  contribute  to  the  city  or  town  expenses."  The 
meaning  of  this  suggestion  is  just  this :  The  body 
of  taxpayers  in  a  given  community  having,  through 
the  public  spirit  and  generosity  of  a  few  of  their 
number,  got  rid  of  one  of  their  principal  charges, 
—  namely,  the  support  of  the  institutions  of  re 
ligion,  high  education,  and  charity, —  propose  to 
avoid  paying  their  full  proportion  of  the  remaining 
charges  for  public  purposes,  such  as  schools,  roads, 
prisons,  and  police.  They  propose,  by  taxing  the 
institutions  which  the  benevolent  few  established 
for  the  benefit  of  the  whole  body,  to  throw  upon 
these  same  public- spirited  and  generous  men  an 
undue  share  of  the  other  public  charges.  To  state 
the  same  thing  in  another  form:  there  are  in  the 
community  common  charges,  A,  B,  C,  D,  and  E ; 
A  has  been  provided  for  by  a  few  private  persons 
at  their  own  cost,  and  the  burden  of  other  tax 
payers  has  been  to  that  extent  lightened;  there 
upon  the  taxpayers  say,  Let  us  take  part  of  the 
money  which  these  men  have  given  for  A,  and  use 
it  for  meeting  charges  B,  C,  D,  and  E.  Our  friends 
who  provided  for  A  will  give  some  more  money  for 
that  purpose,  and  we  shall  escape  a  part  of  our 
share  of  the  cost  of  providing  for  B,  C,  D,  and  E. 
It  is  at  once  apparent  that  this  objection  is  both 
illogical  and  mean:  illogical,  because  if  churches, 
colleges,  and  hospitals  subserve  the  highest  public 
ends,  there  is  no  reason  for  making  them  contrib- 

307 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

ute  to  the  inferior  public  charges ;  and  mean,  be 
cause  it  deliberately  proposes  to  use  the  benevolent 
affections  of  the  best  part  of  the  community  as 
means  of  getting  out  of  them  a  very  disproportion 
ate  share  of  the  taxes. 

The  next  objection  to  the  exemption  which  I 
propose  to  consider  is  formulated  as  follows: 
Churches,  colleges,  and  hospitals  do  indeed  render 
public  service;  they  are  useful  to  the  State;  but 
let  them  be  established  because  the  people  feel  the 
need  of  them,  just  as  people  feel  the  need  of  houses, 
and  food,  and  clothes,  and  by  all  means  let  them 
support  themselves ;  they  ought  not  to  be  favored 
or  artificially  fostered.  Eailroads,  factories,  and 
steamship  lines  do  service  to  the  State ;  but  it  does 
not  follow  that  they  ought  to  be  fostered  by  direct 
grants  of  public  money,  or  be  exempt  from  taxa 
tion.  This  objection  is  a  plausible  one  at  first 
sight;  but  there  is  a  gap  in  the  argument  wide 
enough  for  whole  communities  to  fall  through  into 
ignorance  and  misery.  For  the  building  of  rail 
roads,  factories,  and  steamships  there  exists  an  all- 
sufficient  motive  —  namely,  the  motive  of  private 
gain ;  and  they  ought  not  to  be  built  unless  there 
be  a  genuine  motive  of  that  sort.  A  few  men  can 
combine  together  to  build  a  cotton  mill  whenever 
there  seems  to  be  a  good  chance  to  make  money 
by  so  doing ;  and  they  will  thus  supply  the  com 
munity  with  mills.  The  benefit  they  might  confer 
upon  the  State  would  not  be  a  legitimate  motive 
for  building  a  mill  in  the  absence  of  the  probabil 
ity  of  private  gain.  Now  this  motive  of  private 

308 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

gain  is  not  only  absent  from  the  minds  of  men  who 
found  or  endow  churches,  colleges,  or  hospitals,  but 
would  be  absolutely  ineffective  to  the  end  of  pro 
curing  such  institutions.  It  would  be  impossible 
for  three  or  four  men  to  establish  and  carry  on  a 
university  simply  for  the  education  of  their  own 
sons.  Those  who  found  and  maintain  hospitals 
have,  as  a  rule,  no  personal  use  of  them.  It  is  an 
unworthy  idea  that  a  church  exists  for  the  personal 
profit  and  pleasure  of  its  members,  or  a  college  for 
the  private  advantage  of  those  who  are  educated 
there.  A  church  or  a  college  is  a  sacred  trust,  to 
be  used  and  improved  by  its  members  of  to-day, 
and  to  be  by  them  transmitted  to  its  members  of 
to-morrow.  A  modern  church  is  an  active  center 
of  diffused  charity,  and  of  public  exhortation  to 
duty.  The  press  has  enlarged  the  public  influence 
of  the  pulpit  by  adding  the  multitude  who  read  the 
printed  sermon  to  the  congregation  who  listen  to 
it.  The  orators,  poets,  artists,  physicians,  archi 
tects,  preachers,  and  statesmen  do  not  exercise  their 
trained  faculties  simply  for  their  own  pleasure  and 
advantage,  but  for  the  improvement  and  delight, 
or  the  consolation  and  relief,  of  the  community. 
In  short,  they  do  not  live  for  themselves,  and  could 
not  if  they  would.  To  increase  virtue  and  piety, 
to  diffuse  knowledge  and  foster  learning,  and  to 
alleviate  suffering,  are  the  real  motives  for  found 
ing  and  maintaining  churches,  colleges  and  hos 
pitals.  The  work  must  be  done  through  the  in 
dividuals  on  whom  the  institutions  spend  their 
efforts,  but  the  motive  of  those  who  promote  the 

309 


Tbe  Exemption  From  Taxation 

•work  is  the  public  good  and  the  advancement  of 
humanity.  Mills,  hotels,  railroads,  and  steamships, 
moreover,  though  they  benefit  the  public,  benefit 
them  only  in  a  material  way ;  they  provide  cloth 
ing,  shelter,  easy  transportation,  and,  in  general, 
increase  material  well-being.  People  may  be  re 
lied  on  to  make  themselves  comfortable  or  wealthy, 
if  they  can ;  but  they  need  every  possible  aid  in 
making  themselves  good,  or  learned.  The  self-in 
terest  of  no  man,  and  of  no  association  of  men, 
would  lead  to  the  establishment  of  a  university. 
The  motive  of  private  gain  or  benefit  being  wholly 
lacking  in  most  cases,  and  feeble  in  all,  it  is  to  be 
expected  that  institutions  of  religion,  high  educa 
tion,  and  public  charity  would  not  be  founded  and 
maintained,  except  by  the  direct  action  of  the 
State,  on  the  one  hand,  or,  on  the  other,  by  the 
benefactions  of  private  persons  encouraged  by  fos 
tering  legislation.  This  is  precisely  the  experience 
of  all  the  modern  nations.  The  American  States 
now  do  less  for  the  institutions  of  religion  directly 
than  any  civilized  nation,  and  they  have  done 
wisely  in  completely  avoiding  an  establishment  of 
religion;  but  from  the  time  when  they  ceased  to 
support  religious  institutions  directly  they  fostered 
them  by  exempting  them  from  taxation.  Institu 
tions  of  high  education  never  have  been  self- sup 
porting  in  any  country;  and  there  is  no  reason 
whatever  to  suppose  that  they  ever  can  be.  If 
they  were  made  self-supporting,  they  would  be  in 
accessible  to  the  poor,  and  be  maintained  exclu 
sively  for  the  benefit  of  the  rich.  The  higher  the 

310 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

plane  of  teaching,  the  more  the  teaching  costs,  and 
the  fewer  the  pupils,  from  the  nature  of  the  case, 
As  to  the  charitable  corporations  whose  whole  in 
come  is  used  upon  the  sick,  blind,  or  insane  poor, 
the  notion  that  they  could  ever  be  self-supporting 
is  of  course  an  absurdity.  Hospitals  and  asylums 
which  are  wholly  devoted  to  taking  care  of  men 
and  women  of  the  laboring  classes  who  have  lost 
their  health,  their  reason,  or  some  of  their  senses, 
cannot  be  self-supporting  in  the  nature  of  the  case. 
It  is  an  abuse  of  language  to  apply  the  word  to 
them;  they  are  inevitably  supported  by  private 
benevolence,  or  from  the  government  treasury,  or 
by  the  combination  of  these  two  resources. 

The  opinion,  then,  that  churches,  colleges,  and 
charitable  institutions  would  be  established  in  suf 
ficient  numbers  without  fostering  legislation,  and 
be  as  well  maintained  taxed  as  untaxed,  has  no  war 
rant  either  in  sound  reason  or  in  experience.  Not 
a  bit  of  practical  experience  can  be  found  in  the 
civilized  world  to  support  it ;  and  the  analogy  set 
up  between  these  institutions  of  religion,  education, 
and  charity,  on  the  one  hand,  and  establishments 
of  trade,  manufactures,  and  transportation,  on  the 
other,  is  wholly  inapplicable  and  deceptive. 

I  come  now  to  the  consideration  of  an  objection 
to  the  exemption,  which  is  local  in  its  nature,  but 
not  on  that  account  less  worthy  of  careful  examin 
ation.  Those  who  urge  this  objection  admit  that 
the  public  receive  great  benefits  from  churches, 
colleges,  and  hospitals;  but,  as  these  institutions 
necessarily  have  local  habitations,  and  taxes  under 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

our  laws  are  locally  levied,  they  allege  that  the 
particular  cities  or  towns  in  which  the  institutions 
happen  to  be  situated  bear,  in  loss  of  taxable  prop 
erty,  the  so-called  burden  of  their  exemption,  while 
the  whole  State,  or  perhaps  the  whole  country, 
shares  the  public  benefits  which  accrue  from  them. 
The  public  burdened,  it  is  alleged,  is  not  the  same 
public  as  the  public  benefited.  This  objection  as 
sumes,  in  the  first  place,  that  it  is  a  burden  to  a 
I  city  or  town  to  have  a  lot  of  land  within  its  borders 
'occupied  by  an  institution  exempted  from  taxation; 
and  this  assumption  is  based  upon  the  belief  that, 
if  the  exempted  institution  did  not  occupy  the  lot, 
the  taxable  houses,  or  factories,  or  stores  within  the 
limits  of  the  city  or  town  would  be  increased  by  the 
number  of  houses  or  stores  which  might  stand  upon 
the  exempted  lot.  This  is  a  proposition  which  is 
generally  quite  incapable  of  proof,  and  is  intrin 
sically  improbable,  but  which  nevertheless  has,  in 
some  cases,  a  small  basis  of  unimportant  fact.  It 
implies  that  there  is  an  unsatisfied  demand  for 
eligible  land  on  which  to  build  houses,  or  factories, 
or  stores,  within  the  city  or  town  limits ;  but  this 
can  be  the  case  only  in  very  few  exceptionally  situ 
ated  cities,  and  not  all  the  time  in  them,  but  only 
spasmodically  in  seasons  of  speculation  or  unusual 
activity,  and  even  then  not  over  their  whole  area, 
but  only  in  very  limited  portions  of  it.  Of  course 
the  cost  of  the  buildings  which  might  be  erected 
upon  a  lot  rescued  from  an  exempted  institution  is 
not  to  be  counted  as  an  additional  resource  for  the 
tax-gatherer ;  for  that  amount  was,  under  our  laws, 

312 


Tbe  Exemption  From  Taxation 

taxable  somewhere  before  as  personal  property.  If, 
in  any  town  or  city,  there  are  houses,  or  factories, 
or  stores  enough  to  meet  the  demand  for  such  ac 
commodations,  the  town  or  city  will  gain  nothing 
by  having  more  buildings  erected.  There  may  be 
more  houses  or  more  stores,  but  each  house  or  each 
store  will  be  worth  less.  In  a  large  city  there  will 
always  be  a  few  streets,  and  perhaps  wharves,  which 
are  absolutely  needed  for  business  purposes.  Thus, 
for  example,  it  might  not  be  expedient  to  have  an 
exempted  institution,  which  had  no  need  of  water 
front,  occupy  a  portion  of  a  limited  water-front,  every 
yard  of  which  was  needed  for  commerce.  It  might 
not  be  expedient  that  a  church  should  occupy  a 
street  corner,  or  an  open  square,  in  the  heart  of  the 
business  quarter  of  a  growing  city  —  though  Lon 
don  has  not  felt  obliged  to  move  St.  Paul's  into  the 
country,  or  build  upon  Trafalgar  Square.  But  such 
peculiar  cases  are  to  be  wisely  treated  as  the  excep 
tions  which  they  really  are ;  at  any  rate,  they  can 
not  be  made  the  basis  of  a  great  State's  policy  to 
ward  its  most  precious  institutions — its  institutions 
of  religion,  learning,  and  charity.  As  a  rule,  the 
amount  of  taxed  property,  real  and  personal,  in  a 
town  or  city  is  in  no  way  diminished  by  the  fact 
that  a  portion  of  its  territory  is  exempted  from 
taxation;  and  in  many  cases  it  is  obvious  that  the 
taxable  property  is  actually  increased  by  reserva 
tions,  whether  natural  —  like  small  sheets  of  water, 
or  artificial — like  parks,  squares,  or  open  grounds 
about  churches  and  public  buildings.  It  is  well 
known  that  in  many  new  towns  and  cities  of  the 

313 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

Western  States  it  was  a  well-recognized  and,  in 
some  cases,  very  successful  device  for  raising  the 
price  of  house-lots,  and  stimulating  the  speculation 
in  land,  to  make  a  large  reservation  in  the  center 
of  the  town  for  an  academy  or  college.  This  is  one 
of  the  reasons  why  there  are  such  a  multitude  of 
colleges  in  the  West.  It  is  but  a  few  years  since 
several  towns  were  bidding  against  each  other  to 
get  the  Massachusetts  Agricultural  College  planted 
within  their  borders.  The  town  of  Amherst  paid 
$50,000  for  this  privilege.  In  Boston  itself,  the 
block  of  land  on  which  the  buildings  of  the  Natural 
History  Society  and  the  Institute  of  Technology 
stand  was  given  to  those  corporations  on  the  con 
dition  that,  if  the  lands  surrounding  the  reserved 
area  did  not  rise  in  value,  in  consequence  of  the 
grant,  enough  to  cover  the  estimated  value  of  the 
reservation  itself,  then  the  two  corporations  should 
pay  the  deficiency.  These  corporations  never  had 
to  pay  anything  for  their  land.  The  city  had  just 
as  much  value  in  land  available  for  taxation  after 
the  gift  was  made  to  these  two  exempted  societies 
as  it  would  have  had  if  no  such  gift  had  been  made. 
It  cannot  be  maintained  that  the  exemption  of  the 
church  lots  in  a  country  town  is  in  any  possible 
'  sense  a  burden  to  the  town,  or  that  it  diminishes  in 
any  way  the  valuation  or  amount  of  the  property 
in  the  town  which  is  available  for  taxation.  On  the 
contrary,  every  estate  in  the  town  is  worth  more 
to  the  occupant  and  to  the  assessor,  because  of  the 
presence  of  those  churches.  The  proposition  that 
the  presence,  in  a  town  or  city,  of  exempted  insti- 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

tutions  diminishes  the  amount  of  taxable  property 
therein  is,  therefore,  not  only  incapable  of  proof, 
but  is  manifestly  untrue  in  the  vast  majority  of 
cases. 

There  are,  nevertheless,  some  cases  in  which  a 
new  exemption  involves  a  real  loss,  though  not 
without  compensations,  to  the  town  or  city  from 
which  the  property  was  abstracted ;  and  there  are 
also  cases  in  which  the  restoration  of  an  exempted 
piece  of  property  to  taxation  might  be  a  real  gain, 
in  spite  of  considerable  losses.  When  a  benevolent 
citizen  of  one  town  gives  $100,000  of  personal  prop 
erty  to  an  exempted  institution  situated  in  another 
town,  the  first  town  loses  so  much  property  which 
was  there  taxable,  and  the  second  town  has  the 
local  benefit  of  the  institution,  if  there  be  any.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  town  which  loses  in  this  case 
has  similar  chances  of  gaining  local  benefits  by 
gifts  to  institutions  situated  within  its  limits  from 
citizens  of  other  towns.  Again,  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  the  citizen  who  gave  this  $100,000 
would  have  kept  it  in  a  taxable  form  at  his  place 
of  residence,  if  he  had  not  given  it  to  an  exempted 
institution.  Such  gifts  are  often  —  perhaps  gen 
erally —  made  out  of  annual  earnings  or  sudden 
profits ;  and  if  the  $100,000  had  not  been  given  to 
an  exempted  institution,  it  might  have  been  un- 
profitably  consumed,  or  lost,  or  given  away  to  in 
dividuals  resident  elsewhere.  A  good  deal  of  the 
personal  property  which  now  goes  to  churches,  col 
leges,  and  hospitals  would  be  consumed  outright  if 
it  were  not  so  saved.  If  the  gift  is  made  by  will, 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

instead  of  during  life,  there  are  more  chances  that 
the  $100,000  would,  in  the  distribution  of  the  prop 
erty,  have  been  carried  away  from  the  testator's 
place  of  residence,  at  any  rate.  When  a  piece  of 
estate  is  transferred  to  an  exempted  institution  for 
its  own  proper  use,  the  local  benefits  of  the  institu 
tion,  if  there  be  any,  are  for  the  same  town  which 
gives  up  the  taxes  on  the  piece  of  real  estate,  and 
the  withdrawal  of  that  piece  from  productive  uses 
probably  brings  some  other  piece  into  use  at  once, 
or  at  least  sooner  than  would  otherwise  have  hap 
pened.  It  would  seem,  at  first  sight,  as  if  it  would 
be  clear  gain  to  get  a  piece  of  land,  once  exempted, 
taxed  again,  and  covered  with  taxable  houses  or 
stores ;  but  there  are  always  drawbacks  on  the  gain. 
If  Boston  Common  should  be  cut  up  and  built 
upon,  the  conveniently  situated  houses  and  stores 
built  there  would  cause  other  houses  and  stores, 
less  well  placed,  to  be  vacated  or  to  fall  in  value ; 
and  the  improvement  of  real  estate  in  the  outskirts 
would  be  arrested  or  checked  for  a  time.  The  estates 
which  face  the  Common  would  also  fall  in  value. 
It  would  be  a  permanent  gain  that  the  business  of 
the  city  would  probably  be  more  conveniently  done 
thereafter;  and  this  indirect  gain,  whatever  it  might 
be,  would  ultimately  be  represented  in  the  taxable 
property  of  the  city.  In  this  particular  instance 
the  productiveness  of  Boston  would  doubtless  be 
diminished  by  the  loss  of  health,  vigor,  and  spirits, 
on  the  part  of  the  inhabitants,  consequent  upon  the 
loss  of  the  healthful  open  area.  It  is,  then,  quite 
impossible  to  maintain  that  any  exemption  is  a 

316 


Tbe  Exemption  From  Taxation 

clear  loss  to  the  place  in  which  it  exists.  With 
every  loss  there  come  chances  of  advantage.  Some 
times  the  loss  is  great  and  the  compensation  small, 
and  sometimes  the  advantages  quite  outweigh  the 
loss.  We  have  seen  that,  in  the  long  run,  there  is 
no  real  loss  to  the  State  at  large ;  and,  in  all  proba 
bility,  the  local  gains  and  losses  of  the  various  towns 
and  cities  of  the  Commonwealth  would  be  found  to 
be  distributed  with  tolerable  fairness,  if  the  aver 
aging  period  were  long  enough.  Absolute  equality 
in  matters  of  taxation  is  unattainable. 

It  is  important  to  demonstrate  satisfactorily  the 
statement  just  made,  that  great  advantages  often 
accrue  to  a  town  or  city  from  the  presence  of  insti 
tutions  exempted  from  taxation,  advantages  which 
much  more  than  offset  any  losses  which  are  real.  A 
concrete  instance  will  best  illustrate  this  proposition ; 
and  no  better  instance  can  be  chosen  than  that  of 
Harvard  University,  an  exempted  institution  occu 
pying  about  seventy  acres  of  land  in  the  city  of 
Cambridge,  which  land,  with  the  buildings  thereon 
and  their  contents,  is  alleged  by  the  assessors  to  be 
worth  from  three  to  four  millions  of  dollars.  This 
case  is  perhaps  as  strong  as  any  on  the  side  of  the 
objectors  to  the  exemption,  because  the  exempted 
area  is  large  and  its  value  is  high,  and  on  this  very 
account  it  is  a  case  well  adapted  to  my  present  pur 
pose.  In  the  first  place,  all  the  land  which  faces  or 
adjoins  the  university's  inclosures  is  enhanced  in 
value  in  consequence  of  that  position.  The  open 
grounds  of  the  university  have  the  same  effect  on 
the  surrounding  lands  which  open  spaces  of  an  or- 

.3*7 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

namental  character  always  have  in  cities.  They 
improve  the  quality  and  value  of  the  whole  neigh 
borhood.  Secondly,  the  university  brings  to  Cam 
bridge  a  large  amount  of  personal  property,  which 
becomes  taxable  there.  The  fifty  families  of  which 
the  heads  are  teachers  in  the  university  possess,  on 
the  average,  an  amount  of  personal  property  which 
much  exceeds  the  property  of  the  average  family 
throughout  the  city.  A  considerable  number  of 
families  are  always  living  near  the  university  for 
the  sake  of  educating  their  children.  They  come  to 
Cambridge  for  this  express  purpose,  and  stay  there 
from  four  to  seven  years,  or  sometimes  indefinitely. 
Many  of  these  families  have  large  means ;  in  fact, 
few  others  could  afford  such  a  temporary  change  of 
residence.  Again,  families  of  former  officers  and 
teachers  in  the  university  continue  to  live  in  Cam 
bridge  ;  and  it  is  notorious  that  some  of  the  largest 
properties  taxed  in  the  city  are  of  this  sort.  Fi 
nally,  families  come  to  Cambridge  to  live  because 
of  the  society  which  has  gathered  about  the  uni 
versity.  The  amount  of  taxable  personal  property 
brought  into  Ward  One  of  Cambridge  by  the  uni 
versity  in  these  several  ways  counts  by  millions. 
Accordingly,  this  ward  is  the  richest  ward  in  Cam 
bridge,  and  has  always  been  the  most  desirable  part 
of  the  city  to  live  in,  as  the  character  of  its  houses 
and  of  its  population  abundantly  testifies.  It  has 
eighteen  per  cent,  of  the  houses  in  Cambridge  and 
sixteen  per  cent,  of  the  polls,  while  it  has  thirty  per 
cent,  of  the  taxable  property.  The  ward  had  no 
natural  advantage  over  the  rest  of  the  city,  having, 

318 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

to  this  day,  its  fair  share  of  bogs,  salt  marshes,  and 
sandy  barrens.  The  greater  part  of  its  surface  is 
but  a  few  feet  above  high- water  mark,  and  nothing 
but  the  presence  of  the  university  during  two  hun 
dred  and  forty  years  has  made  it  the  desirable  place 
of  residence  it  is. 

In  still  another  way  does  the  university  bring 
taxable  money  to  Cambridge.  It  collects  from  its 
students  in  Cambridge  about  $150,000  a  year,  adds 
thereto  about  $50,000  of  the  income  of  its  personal 
property,  and  pays  this  large  sum  out  as  salaries 
and  wages  to  people  who  live  in  Cambridge.  A 
large  portion  of  this  sum  is  annually  taxed  by  the 
city  as  the  income  of  individuals  in  excess  of  $2,000 
a  year. 

It  is  well  understood  that  the  building  of  a  new 
factory  in  a  village,  or  the  introduction  of  some  new 
industry  into  a  town,  which  gives  employment  to  a 
large  number  of  respectable  people,  is  a  gain  to  that 
village  or  town.  Whatever  brings  into  a  town  a 
large  body  of  respectable  consumers  benefits  that 
town.  Now,  the  university  brings  into  Cambridge 
a  large  body  of  respectable  consumers :  there  are 
fifty  families  of  teachers,  about  fifty  more  unmar 
ried  officers,  about  one  thousand  students,  and  about 
one  hundred  janitors,  mechanics,  laborers,  bed- 
makers  and  waiters,  a  fair  proportion  of  whom  have 
families.  As  the  great  part  of  these  persons  belong 
to  the  refined  and  intelligent  and  well-to-do  class, 
they  consume  very  much  more  than  the  average  of 
the  community.  The  money  thus  spent  in  Cam 
bridge  is  mainly  brought  from  without,  for  the 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

greater  part  of  it  is  either  derived  from  the  per 
sonal  property  of  the  university,  or  it  is  money 
brought  from  home  by  the  students.  If  it  were  not 
for  the  presence  of  this  body  of  consumers,  the 
land,  houses,  and  shops  of  that  part  of  Cambridge 
would  all  be  worth  less  than  they  are,  and  the  as 
sessors  would  find  so  much  less  to  tax. 

It  is  a  great  advantage  to  a  city  to  have  a  place 
of  high  education  at  its  doors,  just  as  it  adds  to 
the  attractiveness  and  prosperity  of  a  city  to  main 
tain  good  schools.  Nearly  one  hundred  Cambridge 
young  men  are  now  members  of  the  university. 

The  grounds  of  the  university  adorn  the  city, 
and  serve  as  protection  against  spreading  confla 
grations.  They  give  light  and  air,  trees,  shrubs, 
grass,  and  birds  to  a  part  of  the  city  which  must 
soon  become  densely  populated.  In  the  future 
they  will  serve  many  of  the  purposes  of  a  public 
park,  while  they  will  be  maintained  without  ex 
pense  to  the  city.  The  buildings  and  collections 
of  the  university,  which  are  becoming  more  and 
more  attractive,  are  a  source  of  interest  and  pleas 
ure  to  all  the  people  of  the  neighborhood.  It  is  a 
curious  illustration  of  the  incidental  advantages 
which  Cambridge  has  reaped  from  the  presence  of 
the  university,  that  printing  and  binding  are  still 
principal  industries  in  the  city,  industries  which 
give  employment  to  hundreds  of  work-people  and 
a  large  taxable  capital.  The  business  of  printing 
was  planted  in  Cambridge  by  the  college,  and  was 
maintained  there  by  the  college,  in  spite  of  great 
difficulties,  for  many  years. 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

Finally  the  presence  of  the  university  gives  dis 
tinction  to  the  city.  Cambridge  is  one  of  the  fa 
mous  spots  of  the  country,  and  its  citizens  take 
pride  and  pleasure  in  its  eminence. 

I  have  taken  a  single  notable  example  through 
which  to  exhibit  the  various  advantages  which  a 
town  or  city  may  derive  from  the  presence  of  one 
of  the  exempted  institutions.  Mutatis  mutandis, 
the  principles  just  laid  down  apply  to  almost  all  of 
them,  with  a  force  which  varies  with  the  locality, 
the  nature  of  the  institution,  and  the  stage  of  its 
development.  The  benefits  of  many  of  the  ex 
empted  charitable  institutions  are  almost  exclu 
sively  local.  The  direct  benefits  of  a  town's 
churches  are  largely,  though  not  exclusively,  local, 
and  if  the  church  buildings  are  beautiful,  or  inter 
esting  from  historical  associations,  this  indirect 
benefit  is  local  too.  It  may  not  be  impossible  to 
pick  out  some  exceptional  institution  of  educa 
tion  or  charity,  or  some  single  peculiarly  placed 
church,  to  which  these  principles  concerning  the 
bearing  of  the  exemption  upon  the  interests  of 
localities  may  not  apply  in  their  full  force,  or  may 
not  apply  at  all  at  a  given  moment ;  but  the  legis 
lator  should  never  be  much  influenced  by  the  ex 
ceptions  to  general  rules,  or  by  momentary  abnor 
mal  phenomena,  or  by  the  back  eddies  in  a  strong 
current  of  opinion. 

We  have  seen  that  exempted  institutions  are 
considered  by  towns  desirable  acquisitions,  in  spite 
of  the  exemption.  There  is  competition  among 
them  even  for  the  State  prison  and  the  lunatic 

21  321 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

asylums;  and  they  doubtless  understand  their  own 
interests.  But  if  the  towns  were  allowed  to  tax 
the  institutions  now  exempted,  what  a  treasure 
would  a  college,  or  a  hospital,  with  a  large  amount 
of  personal  property,  be  to  a  town !  The  town 
would  have  all  the  indirect  local  benefits  of  the 
institution,  and  the  taxes  on  its  property  besides ; 
and  this  unmerited  addition  to  the  property  tax 
able  in  the  town  would  correspond  to  no  service 
performed,  sacrifice  made,  or  burden  borne  by  the 
town. 

It  has  been  often  asserted  that  to  exempt  an 
institution  from  taxation  is  the  same  thing  as  to 
grant  it  money  directly  from  the  public  treasury. 
This  statement  is  sophistical  and  fallacious.  It  is 
true  that  the  immediate  effect  on  the  public  treas 
ury  is  in  dollars  and  cents  the  same,  whether  Har 
vard  University  be  taxed  $50,000,  and  then  get  a 
grant  of  $50,000,  or  be  exempted  from  taxes  to  the 
amount  of  $50,000,  and  get  no  grant.  The  imme 
diate  effect  on  the  budget  of  the  university  would 
also  be  the  same.  The  proximate  effects  of  these 
two  methods  of  State  action  in  favor  of  religion, 
education,  and  charity  are  however  unlike  —  so 
unlike,  indeed,  that  one  is  a  safe  method,  while 
the  other  is  an  unsafe  method  in  the  long  run, 
though  it  may  be  justifiable  under  exceptional 
circumstances.  The  exemption  method  is  compre 
hensive,  simple,  and  automatic ;  the  grant  method, 
as  it  has  been  exhibited  in  this  country,  requires 
special  legislation  of  a  peculiarly  dangerous  sort,  a 
legislation  which  inflames  religious  quarrels,  gives 

322 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

occasion  for  acrimonious  debates,  and  tempts  to 
jobbery.  The  exemption  method  leaves  the  trus 
tees  of  the  fostered  institutions  untrammeled  in 
their  action,  and  untempted  to  unworthy  acts  or 
mean  compliances.  The  grant  method,  as  prac 
tised  here,  puts  them  in  the  position  of  importu 
nate  suitors  for  the  public  bounty,  or,  worse, 
converts  them  into  ingenious  and  unscrupulous 
assailants  of  the  public  treasury.  Finally  and 
chiefly,  —  and  to  this  point  I  ask  special  atten 
tion, — the  exemption  method  fosters  public  spirit, 
while  the  grant  method,  persevered  in,  annihilates 
it.  The  State  says  to  the  public-spirited  benefac 
tor,  "You  devote  a  part  of  your  private  property 
forever  to  certain  public  uses ;  you  subscribe  to 
build  a  church,  for  example,  or  you  endow  an 
academy;  we  agree  not  to  take  a  portion  of  the 
income  of  that  property  every  year  for  other  pub 
lic  uses,  such  as  the  maintenance  of  schools,  pris 
ons,  and  highways."  That  is  the  whole  significance 
of  the  exemption  of  any  endowment  from  taxation. 
The  State  agrees  that  no  part  of  the  income  of 
property,  once  private,  which  a  former  generation, 
or  the  present  generation,  has  devoted  forever  to 
some  particular  public  use,  shall  be  diverted  by 
the  State  to  other  public  uses.  The  exemption 
method  is  emphatically  an  encouragement  to  public 
benefactors.  On  the  contrary,  the  grant  method 
extinguishes  public  spirit.  No  private  person 
thinks  of  contributing  to  the  support  of  an  institu 
tion  which  has  once  got  firmly  saddled  on  the  pub 
lic  treasury.  The  exemption  method  fosters  the 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

public  virtues  of  self-respect  and  reliance ;  the 
grant  method  leads  straight  to  an  abject  depen 
dence  upon  that  superior  power  —  Government. 
The  proximate  effects  of  the  two  methods  of  State 
action  are  as  different  as  well-being  from  pauper 
ism,  as  republicanism  from  communism.  It  de 
pends  upon  the  form  which  the  action  of  the  State 
takes,  and  upon  the  means  which  must  be  used  to 
secure  its  favor,  whether  the  action  of  the  State  be 
on  the  whole  wholesome  or  pernicious.  The  ex 
emption  is  wholesome,  while  the  direct  grant  is,  in 
the  long  run,  pernicious. 

There  has  been,  of  late  years,  a  good  deal  of 
vague  declamation  against  endowments.  We  have 
heard  much  of  the  follies  and  whimsies  of  testa 
tors,  and  fearful  pictures  have  been  painted  of 
dead  hands  stretched  out  from  the  cold  grave  to 
chill  and  oppress  the  living.  We  frequently  read 
sneers  and  flings  at  those  benefactors  of  the  public 
who,  living  or  dying,  consecrate  their  money  to  re 
ligious,  educational,  or  charitable  uses.  In  urging 
the  abolition  of  the  exemption,  much  use  has  been 
made  of  this  sort  of  appeal.  What  is  its  basis? 
Are  there  any  grounds  whatever  for  jealousy  of 
endowments  1  Millions  of  private  property  in  this 
State  have  been  devoted  to  public  uses  of  religion, 
education,  and  charity.  These  endowments  are  all 
doing  good  work  for  the  present  generation,  and 
are  likely  to  do  good  to  many  generations  to  come. 
To  how  many  injurious  or  useless  endowments  can 
any  one  point  in  Massachusetts  ?  There  are  per 
sons  who  too  hastily  say  that  they  hold  Catholic 

324 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

churches  to  be  injurious  endowments ;  but  it  must 
be  a  very  bigoted  Protestant  that  does  not  admit 
that  a  Catholic  church  is  better  for  a  Catholic  pop 
ulation  than  no  church  at  all.  Catholics  would 
doubtless,  in  these  days,  grant  as  much  as  that  for 
a  Protestant  population.  The  judicious  legislator, 
when  he  speaks  of  the  church,  does  not  mean  any 
particular  church,  or  the  churches  of  any  particular 
sect;  he  means  the  sum  of  all  the  churches,  the 
aggregate  of  all  religious  institutions,  Christian, 
Israelite  and  Greek,  Eoman  and  Protestant,  Con 
gregational,  Baptist,  Anglican  and  Quaker.  To 
legislate,  directly  or  indirectly,  either  for  or  against 
any  particular  religious  belief  or  worship  would  be 
utterly  repugnant  to  all  sound  American  opinion 
and  practice. 

What  silly  fancy  or  absurd  whim  of  a  testator 
can  be  instanced  in  Massachusetts?  Is  anybody 
in  this  country  obstructed,  as  to  his  rights,  duties, 
or  enjoyments,  by  any  endowment  or  foundation 
provided  by  the  living  or  the  dead  I  The  sugges 
tion  is  to  the  last  degree  ungrateful  and  absurd. 
Because  there  have  been  found  in  England  a  few 
endowments  six  or  seven  centuries  old,  which,  in 
the  changed  condition  of  society,  had  come  to  do 
more  harm  than  good,  shall  we  on  this  fresh  conti 
nent,  in  this  newly  organized  society,  distrust  all 
endowments  ?  Let  us  at  least  wait  to  be  hurt  be 
fore  we  cry  out.  If  the  time  ever  comes  in  this 
country  when  certain  endowments,  or  classes  of 
endowments,  are  found  to  do  more  harm  than  good 
to  the  community,  legislation  must  then  reform 
21* 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

them,  so  as  to  prevent  the  harm  and  increase  the 
good.  We  may  be  sure  that  our  descendants  of 
five  centuries  hence  will  have  the  sense  to  treat  the 
endowments  which  we  are  establishing  as  England 
has  treated  some  of  her  medieval  endowments  — 
reconstruct  them,  when  they  need  it,  without  de 
stroying  them.  Taxation  would  not  only  be  no 
remedy  for  the  folly  of  endowments,  if  there  were 
foolish  endowments ;  but  it  would  actually  abridge 
the  moral  right  of  the  State  to  interfere  with  mis 
chievous  endowments.  Institutions  which  are  fos 
tered  by  the  State  through  exemption  from  taxation 
must  admit  the  ultimate  right  of  the  State  to  in 
quire  into  the  administration  of  their  affairs.  An 
institution,  on  the  other  hand,  which  got  no  help 
from  the  State,  and  was  taxed  like  a  private  per 
son,  would  have  a  right  to  claim  all  the  immunity 
from  State  inquiry  into  its  affairs  which  an  indivi 
dual  may  claim.  Thus  the  State  may  and  should 
demand  from  every  exempted  institution  an  an 
nual  statement  of  its  affairs  which  could  be  given 
to  the  public;  but  no  such  statement  for  public 
use  could  properly  be  demanded  of  an  institution 
which  paid  taxes  like  any  private  citizen.  Such  an 
institution  would  have  a  moral  right  to  the  priv 
acy  to  which  an  individual  is  entitled  in  a  free 
country. 

In  this  country,  when  one  wishes  to  scoff  at  en 
dowments,  he  must  draw  on  his  imagination  for 
his  facts.  There  is  but  one  well-founded  charge  to 
bring  against  our  countrymen  in  this  matter  of 
setting  apart  private  property  for  public  uses  of 

326 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

religion,  education,  and  charity.  They  scatter  their 
gifts  too  widely ;  so  that  a  greater  number  of  insti 
tutions  are  started  than  can  be  well  maintained. 
But  the  remedy  for  this  evil  is  to  consolidate  en 
dowments —  not  to  tax  them.  This  consolidation 
has  already  begun,  and  will  be  brought  about  by 
the  gradual  enlightenment  of  public  opinion  on 
this  subject.  To  draw  a  vivid  picture  of  alleged 
scandals  and  abuses,  and  then  propose  some  action 
of  an  irrelevant  nature,  desired  for  other  reasons, 
as  if  it  were  a  remedy  for  those  scandals  and 
abuses,  is  a  well-known  device  of  ingenious  dispu 
tants  ;  but  it  is  a  device  which  ought  not  to  impose 
on  clear-headed  people.  To  prejudice  the  mass  of 
the  people  against  endowments  is  the  part  of  a 
demagogue,  for  it  is  to  induce  them  to  act  ignor- 
antly  in  direct  opposition  to  their  own  real  inter 
ests  ;  since  endowments  exist  for  the  benefit  of  the 
great  mass  of  the  people,  while  they  are  a  matter 
of  but  slight  concern  to  the  rich.  The  rich  man 
does  not  care  whether  education  be  dear  or  cheap ; 
he  does  not  want  the  scholarships  of  a  college ;  he 
does  not  need  to  send  his  children  to  a  hospital; 
he  could  afford  to  keep  a  clergyman  in  his  own 
family,  if  he  cared  to.  It  is  the  poor  man  who 
needs  the  church  which  others  have  built ;  the  col 
lege  which,  because  it  has  endowments,  is  able  to 
offer  his  ambitious  son  a  liberal  education;  the 
hospital  which  will  give  him,  when  disabled,  atten 
dance  as  skilful  and  careful  as  the  rich  man  can 
buy.  Moreover,  the  poor  man  has  no  direct  inter 
est  in  this  proposed  taxation  of  the  institutions 

327 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

now  exempted ;  it  will  not  help  him  pay  his  poll- 
tax,  nor  lessen  the  amount  of  it;  it  will  help  no 
one  but  the  property-holders.  It  is  natural  enough 
that  a  property-holder  who  has  no  public  spirit 
should  desire  to  escape  his  share  of  the  charge  of 
supporting  institutions  of  public  utility,  on  the 
ground  that  he  feels  no  personal  need  of  them. 
But  that  a  man  of  property  feels  no  want  of  insti 
tutions  which  are  necessary  to  the  security  of  the 
community,  and  does  not  believe  in  them,  are  no 
reasons  for  excusing  him  from  his  share  in  the  sup 
port  of  these  institutions.  The  doctrine  that  a  cit 
izen  can  justly  be  called  upon  to  contribute  to  the 
support  of  those  things  only  which  he  approves,  or 
which  are  of  direct  benefit  to  him,  would  cripple 
our  public  schools  as  well  as  our  colleges,  and,  in 
fact,  would  destroy  the  basis  of  almost  all  taxation. 
The  Massachusetts  statute  about  the  exemption, 
as  it  is  administered,  guards  effectually  against  all 
the  real  evils  described  by  the  law  term  "mort 
main  "  —  a  word  the  translation  of  which  seems  to 
be  such  an  irresistible  rhetorical  titbit  for  many 
who  advocate  taxing  churches  and  carrying  on  uni 
versities  by  legislative  grants.  It  is,  indeed,  inex 
pedient  that  religious,  educational,  or  charitable 
corporations  should  hold  large  quantities  of  real 
estate  for  purposes  of  revenue ;  first,  because  expe 
rience  shows  that  such  corporate  bodies  do  not,  as 
a  rule,  improve  real  estate  as  steadily  and  promptly 
as  individuals ;  and  secondly,  because  the  accumu 
lation  of  large  quantities  of  land  in  single  hands, 
although  permissible,  and  often  rather  beneficial 

328 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

than  hurtful  to  the  community,  is  an  operation 
which  needs  the  natural  check  of  death  and  distri 
bution  among  heirs.  This  check  is  wanting  in  the 
case  of  permanent  corporations.  Now,  the  Massa 
chusetts  statute  does  not  exempt  from  taxation  real 
estate  held  by  religious,  educational,  and  charitable 
institutions  for  purposes  of  revenue.  On  the  con 
trary,  all  such  property  so  held  by  these  institutions 
pays  taxes  precisely  as  if  the  pieces  of  property  be 
longed  to  private  individuals.  If  the  Old  South 
Church  corporation  owns  stores  from  which  it 
derives  income  applicable  to  the  purposes  of  its 
trust,  those  stores  are  taxed  precisely  as  if  they 
were  the  property  of  individuals.  Harvard  Univer 
sity  owns  a  number  of  stores  in  the  business  part  of 
Boston ;  with  one  exception  (a  store  included  in  the 
exemption  given  by  the  charter  of  1650),  these 
stores  are  taxed  just  as  if  they  belonged  to  an  indi 
vidual.  If  the  Catholic  Church  undertakes  to  hold 
real  estate  for  income,  or  as  an  investment,  it  has 
to  pay  taxes  on  such  property,  under  the  existing 
statute,  like  any  private  citizen.  No  exempted  in 
stitution  can  hold  real  estate  free  of  taxes  except 
that  which  is  fairly  necessary  for  the  purposes  of 
the  religious,  educational,  or  charitable  trust.  It 
would  be  a  dishonorable  evasion  of  the  real  intent  of 
the  statute  to  claim  exemption  on  real  estate  which 
was  bought  with  the  intention  of  selling  it  again  at 
a  profit ;  and  if  any  addition  could  be  made  to  the 
statute  which  would  make  such  a  practice  impossi 
ble,  or  would  subject  to  penalties  any  institution 
which  should  be  guilty  of  it,  such  an  addition  would 

329 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

be  an  improvement ;  although  it  is  altogether  likely 
that  the  offense  contemplated  has  never,  as  a  mat 
ter  of  fact,  been  committed.  Of  course,  the  mere 
fact  that  an  institution  has  made  a  sale  of  exempted 
land  is  not  in  itself  evidence  of  an  evasion  of  the 
statute ;  for  poverty  may  compel  an  institution  to 
part  with  land  which  it  ought,  in  the  real  interest 
of  the  trust,  to  keep.  It  is  also  a  perfectly  legiti 
mate  transaction  for  an  exempted  institution  to  sell 
one  site  in  order  to  occupy  another.  One  cause  of 
the  agitation  for  the  abolition  of  the  exemption 
has  been  the  distrust  awakened  by  sales  of  church 
property  at  large  profit  in  the  older  parts  of  our 
growing  cities.  But  these  sales  are  perfectly  legiti 
mate.  Those  who  believe  in  the  public  utility  of 
churches  need  only  to  be  assured  that  the  proceeds 
of  these  advantageous  sales  must  be  invested  in  new 
churches  —  that  none  of  the  property  can  relapse 
into  the  condition  of  private  property.  This  assur 
ance  the  action  of  the  Massachusetts  courts  indis 
putably  gives.  It  is  hard  to  see  why  these  transfers 
of  churches  from  more  valuable  to  less  valuable 
city  lots  should  seem  a  grievance  to  anybody. 
Whenever  a  city  church  sells  its  old  site  for  a  large 
sum,  buys  a  new  site  for  a  much  smaller  sum,  and 
with  the  balance  erects  a  handsome  church,  the 
amount  of  property  exempted  from  taxation  re 
mains  precisely  what  it  was  before,  and  the  city 
gains  an  ornamental  building.  There  is  less  value 
in  the  exempted  land  than  before,  but  more  in  the 
building.  On  the  whole,  considering  the  nature  of 
American  legislation  concerning  testamentary  dis- 

330 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

positions  and  the  holding  and  transfer  of  land, 
considering  the  nature  and  history  of  our  ecclesias 
tical  bodies  and  the  mobility  of  our  whole  social 
fabric,  there  is  probably  no  economical  evil  from 
which  an  American  State  is  so  little  likely  to  suffer 
as  the  medieval  evil  of  mortmain.  To  live  in  ap 
prehension  of  it  would  be  as  little  reasonable  as  for 
the  people  of  Boston  to  live  in  constant  dread  of 
being  overwhelmed  by  an  eruption  of  lava  from 
Blue  Hill. 

It  has  been  suggested  by  persons  who  apprehend 
that  the  institutions  of  religion,  education  and 
charity,  or  some  of  them,  will  get  a  disproportion 
ate  and  injurious  development,  that  only  a  limited 
exemption  should  be  allowed  them,  the  limit  to  be 
fixed  by  legislation.  If,  however,  the  property  of 
these  corporations  is  really  held  and  used  for  a 
high  public  purpose,  it  is  hard  to  understand  how 
it  can  be  for  the  interest  of  the  public  to  pass  any 
laws  which  tend  to  limit  the  amount  of  that  prop 
erty —  at  least  until  more  property  has  been  set 
aside  for  that  purpose  than  can  be  well  used.  If 
it  is  inexpedient  for  the  State  to  use  for  its  com 
mon  purposes  —  not  religious  or  educational  —  any 
portion  of  the  income  of  a  church  or  an  academy 
up  to  $5000,  why  is  it  not  also  inexpedient  to  di 
vert  from  religious  or  educational  uses  any  portion 
of  the  income  above  $5000?  If  the  legislature 
could  tell  with  certainty  just  how  much  property 
it  was  expedient  for  a  church,  or  a  college,  or  a 
hospital  to  have,  then  a  limit  for  exempted  prop 
erty  in  each  case  would  be  natural  and  right ;  but 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

the  legislature  cannot  have  this  knowledge ;  and  if 
they  could  acquire  it  for  to-day,  it  would  be  out 
grown  to-morrow.  Moreover,  the  circumstances 
and  functions  of  the  various  exempted  institutions 
are  so  widely  different  and  so  changeable,  that  each 
institution  would  necessarily  have  its  own  limit 
prescribed  by  law,  and  would  be  incessantly  be 
sieging  the  legislature  for  a  change  in  its  limit. 
The  legislature  would  be  forced  to  keep  removing 
the  limit  of  exemption,  because  in  most  cases  there 
would  be  no  logic  in  the  limit.  The  more  books 
there  are  in  a  library  the  better ;  it  would  be  ab 
surd  to  exempt  the  first  hundred  thousand,  and  tax 
the  second  hundred  thousand.  The  more  good 
pictures,  statues,  and  engravings  there  are  in  an 
art  museum,  the  better ;  it  would  be  absurd  to  ex 
empt  a  museum  while  it  had  few  of  these  precious 
objects,  and  tax  it  when  it  got  more,  and  so  became 
more  useful  to  the  public.  A  sumptuary  law  to 
prevent  the  erection  of  beautiful  churches,  by  tax 
ing  the  excess  of  the  value  of  a  church  above  a 
certain  moderate  sum,  would  be  singular  legisla 
tion  for  Massachusetts.  Who  can  tell  how  much 
money  Harvard,  or  Amherst,  or  Williams  could 
use  legitimately  to-day  for  the  advantage  of  the 
State  in  advanced  education  ?  If  one  knew  to-day, 
the  knowledge  would  be  worthless  next  year.  The 
one  perfectly  plain  fact  is  that  no  one  of  the  insti 
tutions  of  advanced  education  in  this  State  has  one 
half  the  property  which  it  could  use  to  advantage. 
It  would  be  cruel  mockery  to  enact  that  a  woman 
who  can  hardly  buy  calico  and  flannel  shall  not 


Tbe  Exemption  From  Taxation 

wear  velvet  and  sable.  The  amount  of  exempted 
real  estate  which  any  of  the  exempted  institutions 
can  hold  is  limited  by  natural  causes.  As  such 
real  estate  is,  as  a  rule,  completely  unproductive, 
the  institution  will  not  be  likely  to  tie  up  any  more 
of  its  property  in  that  form  than  it  can  help.  A 
limit  to  exempted  real  estate  has  seemed  desirable 
to  some  persons,  because  it  has  sometimes  hap 
pened  in  large  cities  that  institutions  of  religion, 
education,  or  charity  have  changed  their  sites  with 
great  profit ;  but  in  such  cases  the  community  gets 
the  whole  advantage  of  the  profit  in  the  increased 
work  of  the  church,  college,  or  hospital.  More 
over,  such  transactions  imply  a  growing  population, 
likely  to  make  increasing  demands  upon  the  insti 
tutions  of  religion,  education,  and  charity,  which, 
therefore,  need  all  the  new  resources  which  the 
growth  of  population  fairly  brings  them. 

Those  who  advocate  limiting  the  amount  of  the 
exempted  property  which  may  be  held  for  a  re 
ligious,  educational,  or  charitable  trust  seem  to 
forget  that  it  is  the  public  which  is  the  real  en- 
joyer  of  all  such  property,  and  that  it  is  the  public 
only  which  is  really  interested  in  its  increase,  ex 
cept  as  gratitude,  affection,  or  public  spirit  may 
prompt  individuals  to  share  this  public  interest. 
All  such  trusts  are  gifts  "  to  a  general  public  use, 
which  extends  to  the  poor  as  well  as  the  rich,"  to 
quote  Lord  Camden's  definition  of  a  charity  in  the 
legal  sense.  They  are  gifts  for  the  benefit  of  an 
indefinite  number  of  persons,  by  bringing  their 
minds  under  the  influence  of  religion  or  education, 

333 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

or  by  relieving  their  bodies  from  disease.  They 
are  trusts  in  the  support  and  execution  of  which 
the  whole  public  is  concerned,  on  which  account 
they  are  allowed,  unlike  private  trusts,  to  be  per 
petual.  Now,  for  the  public  to  make  laws  which 
tend  to  discourage  private  persons  from  giving 
property  to  the  public  for  its  own  uses  is  as  un 
wise  as  for  the  natural  heir  to  put  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  a  well-disposed  relative  who  is  making 
his  will.  The  fact  that  the  property  of  these  pub 
lic  trusts  is  administered  by  persons  who  are  not 
immediately  chosen  or  appointed  by  the  public 
obscures  to  some  minds  the  essential  principle  that 
the  property  is  really  held  and  used  for  the  public 
benefit ;  but  the  mode  of  administration  does  not 
alter  the  uses,  or  make  the  property  any  less  prop 
erty  held  for  the  public.  Experience  has  shown 
that  many  of  the  religious,  educational  and  char 
itable  works  of  the  community  can  be  peacefully, 
frugally,  and  wisely  carried  on  by  boards  of  trus 
tees  ;  and  that  method  has  been  preferred  in  Eng 
land  and  the  United  States.  On  the  continent  of 
Europe  these  functions  are  discharged  by  govern 
ment  ;  but,  under  both  methods  of  administration, 
the  functions  are  public  functions.  The  fact  that 
nobody  has  any  permanent  interest  in  the  property 
of  such  trusts,  except  the  public,  is  well  brought 
out  by  imagining  what  would  occur  if  a  church,  or 
an  academy,  or  an  insane  asylum  should  be  taxed, 
and  nobody  should  come  forward  to  pay  the  taxes. 
It  is  nobody's  private  interest  to  pay  such  taxes. 
The  city  or  town  could  proceed  to  sell  the  church 

334 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

or  other  building  belonging  to  the  trust ;  but  if  it 
did  so,  the  effect  would  be  that  a  piece  of  property 
which  had  been  set  apart  for  public  uses  would 
become  private  property  again,  unless  some  benev 
olent  persons  should,  for  the  love  of  God  or  the 
love  of  their  neighbors,  buy  the  property  over 
again  for  its  original  public  uses.  A  city  might  as 
well  levy  taxes  on  its  city  hall,  and  sell  it  for  taxes 
in  default  of  payment. 

It  remains  to  consider  the  effect  of  abolishing 
the  exemption.  No  church  could  be  maintained 
upon  ground  which  would  be  very  valuable  for 
other  purposes,  and  costly  church  edifices  would  be 
out  of  the  question.  A  society  whose  land  and 
building  were  worth  $300,000  would  have  to  pay 
$4,500  a  year  in  taxes,  besides  all  the  proper  ex 
penses  of  a  church.  The  burden  would  be  intoler 
able.  The  loss  to  the  community,  in  that  pure 
pleasure  which  familiar  objects  of  beauty  give, 
would  be  unspeakable.  The  village  could  spare  its 
spired  wooden  church  as  ill  as  the  city  its  cathe 
dral.  Cities  have  learned  that  fine  architecture  in 
their  own  buildings  is  a  justifiable  luxury.  On  the 
same  betterment  principle  handsome  churches  are 
profitable  to  the  public  as  well  as  delightful.  I  say 
nothing  of  the  grievous  moral  loss  to  the  whole 
people  which  would  result  from  crippling  the  ex 
isting  churches,  and  making  it  harder  to  build  the 
new  ones  which  our  growing  population  should 
have.  That  loss  would  be  deep  and  wide-spread 
and  lasting;  but  other  pens  than  mine  can  better  de 
pict  it.  Educational  institutions  would  be  obliged 

335 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

to  take  the  taxes  out  of  the  income  of  their  per 
sonal  property  or  out  of  their  tuition  fees.  The 
fifty  or  sixty  thousand  dollars  which  the  city  of 
Cambridge  would  take  next  year  from  Harvard 
University  would  be  deducted  from  the  money  now 
available  for  salaries  of  teachers.  This  sum  repre 
sents  the  pay  of  from  twelve  to  fifteen  professors, 
or  of  a  much  larger  number  of  teachers  of  the  lower 
grades.  Moreover,  the  sum  thus  withdrawn  from 
teaching  would  annually  increase  with  the  rising 
value  of  land  in  Cambridge;  while  it  can  by  no 
means  be  assumed  that  the  personal  property  and 
tuition  fees  of  the  University  would  increase  pro 
portionally.  The  burden  might  easily  become 
wholly  unbearable.  The  barbarous  character  of 
the  proposition  to  tax  property  devoted  to  educa 
tional  purposes  may  be  well  brought  home  by  spe 
cifying  a  few  of  the  items  of  what  would  be  the 
tax  on  Harvard  University.  Memorial  Hall,  with 
the  two  acres  of  land  in  which  it  stands,  would  be 
taxable  for  not  less  than  $550,000  next  year,  and 
there  is  no  telling  the  price  per  foot  to  which  the 
land  may  rise,  for  it  is  well  situated  between  three 
good  streets.  Eight  thousand  dollars  would  be 
next  year's  tax  on  that  monument  of  pure  devotion 
to  the  public  good ;  and  every  year  the  tax  would 
increase.  Charlestown  might  as  well  be  allowed  to 
tax  Bunker  Hill  Monument,  as  Cambridge  to  tax 
Memorial  Hall.  To  commemorate  the  virtue  of  its 
one  hundred  and  forty  graduates  and  students 
who  died  for  their  country  in  the  war  of  the  Re 
bellion  would  cost  the  University  the  salaries  of 

336 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

at  least  two  professorships  every  year,  in  addition 
to  the  original  cost  of  the  land  and  buildings  and 
the  maintenance  of  the  buildings.  Moreover,  every 
added  picture  or  bust  would  entail  an  additional 
contribution  on  the  part  of  the  University  to  the 
ordinary  expenses  of  the  city  of  Cambridge.  To 
place  Charles  Suinner's  bust  in  the  Hall  would  in 
crease  the  annual  taxes  by  $7.50,  and  to  hang  there 
the  portrait  of  Col.  Robert  G-.  Shaw,  who  was  killed 
at  Fort  Wagner,  would  give  $15  a  year  to  the  city. 
The  College  Library  may  be  freely  consulted  by  all 
persons,  whether  connected  with  the  University  or 
not.  With  the  building  which  contains  it,  this  col 
lection  of  books  could  hardly  be  valued  at  less  than 
$300,000  —  a  sum  very  far  short  of  its  cost.  There 
would,  therefore,  be  a  tax  upon  that  library  of  per 
haps  $4,500  a  year  now;  and,  as  about  $10,000 
worth  of  books  are  bought  each  year,  the  annual 
increase  of  the  tax  would  be  sure.  If  it  is  inexpe 
dient  that  such  a  library  should  be  exempt  from 
taxation,  how  wrong  it  must  be  that  cities  and  towns 
should  pay  all  the  expenses  of  public  libraries,  be 
sides  exempting  them  from  taxation.  The  Observ 
atory,  an  institution  maintained  solely  for  the  ad 
vancement  of  knowledge,  and  having  no  regular 
income  except  from  its  endowments,  is  necessarily 
surrounded  by  open  grounds,  embracing  several 
acres,  and  it  must  remain  so  protected,  if  good  work 
is  to  be  done  there.  The  taxes  on  this  land  would 
eat  up  half  the  income  of  the  Observatory  now,  and 
in  a  few  years  the  whole  income.  The  richer  and 
more  populous  Cambridge  became,  the  heavier 

331 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

would  be  the  charges  upon  the  University,  for  the 
higher  would  be  the  price  of  land  throughout  the 
city.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  facts  and  illus 
trations  used  to  support  the  proposition  that  insti 
tutions  of  religion,  education,  and  charity  must  be 
taxed  are  mostly  drawn  from  the  rich  towns  and 
cities  of  the  Commonwealth  —  not  from  the  country 
villages.  The  advisability  of  taxing  churches,  col 
leges,  and  hospitals  does  not  seem  to  suggest  itself 
until  a  community  gets  very  rich  —  until  its  terri 
tory  is  at  a  great  price  per  square  foot.  When  Cam 
bridge  was  a  country  village,  she  was  glad  to  give 
the  College  a  site  for  its  first  building. 

The  abolition  of  the  exemption  would  reduce  the 
service  of  all  the  institutions  of  advanced  education 
in  the  State  from  20  to  25  per  cent,  at  present,  and 
this  diminution  of  efficiency  would  grow  greater 
year  by  year.  All  the  academies,  colleges,  profes 
sional  schools,  and  scientific  or  technical  schools,  all 
the  libraries  not  town  libraries,  all  the  museums  of 
art  or  natural  history,  would  see  from  one  fifth  to 
one  quarter  of  their  income  diverted  from  educa 
tion,  and  applied  to  ordinary  city  and  town  expen 
ditures.  An  extravagant  city  or  town  government 
might  at  any  time  demand  much  more  than  one 
fourth  of  their  income.  Precious  institutions,  which 
render  great  services  to  the  whole  State,  or  perhaps 
to  the  nation,  would  be  at  the  mercy  of  a  single 
local  government. 

It  is  impossible  that  a  Massachusetts  legislature 
should  consent  to  so  great  a  reduction  in  the  work 
of  the  institutions  of  advanced  education  all  over 

338 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

the  State ;  that  work  is  none  too  great  now.  Con 
sidering  the  place  which  Massachusetts  has  always 
claimed  among  her  sister  States  in  all  matters  of 
education,  and  which  she  must  hold  if  her  influence 
is  to  be  maintained,  it  is  incredible  that  she  should 
seriously  contemplate  putting  all  her  best  institu 
tions  at  such  a  terrible  disadvantage  in  the  race  for 
excellence  with  similar  institutions  in  the  other 
States,  where  high  education  would  remain  un- 
taxed.  Of  course,  the  direct  aid  of  the  State  would 
be  urgently  invoked,  and,  indeed,  it  is  obvious  that 
the  State  would  be  compelled  to  assume  the  charges 
which  the  crippled  endowments  for  religion,  educa 
tion,  and  charity  could  no  longer  sustain ;  the  State 
tax  would  thereby  be  largely  increased,  and  the  tax 
payers  would  lose  rather  than  gain  by  the  change. 
There  is  but  small  chance  that  local  taxes  would  be 
diminished  by  abolishing  the  exemption.  Give  the 
cities  and  towns  of  Massachusetts  new  resources, 
and  instantly  they  will  make  new  expenditures 
which  will  more  than  absorb  those  resources.  It  is 
the  excessive  expenditure  of  towns  and  cities  which 
has  been  the  principal  cause  of  this  extraordinary 
proposition  to  tax  religion,  education,  and  charity. 
The  assessors  are  driven  to  desperate  devices  for 
increasing  the  public  revenue.  The  one  real  remedy 
for  the  evils,  which  cause  the  eager  search  for  some 
thing  new  to  tax,  is  reduction  of  expenditure ;  and 
this  reduction  can  only  be  accomplished  through 
the  election  of  independent  and  courageous  legisla 
tors  and  administrators  in  towns,  cities,  and  the 
State  at  large.  Whenever  the  people  find  them- 

339 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

selves  in  serious  difficulty,  they  instinctively  show 
their  fundamental  reliance  upon  men  of  character 
by  calling  upon  them  to  bring  the  State  out  of 
trouble.  The  proposition  under  discussion  is  a 
proposition  to  cripple  or  crush  the  institutions 
which  breed  men  of  character.  It  should  be  called 
a  proposition  to  get  rid  of  churches,  to  cripple  col 
leges,  to  impair  charities,  and  to  extinguish  public 
spirit.  The  direct  intervention  of  the  State  might 
indeed  avert  some  of  these  evils,  but  only  at  the 
great  cost  of  adding  to  the  already  too  numerous 
and  too  complex  functions  of  the  State,  and  of 
strengthening  the  vicious  tendency  to  centraliza 
tion  of  powers  in  government. 

The  two  nations  in  which  endowments  for  public 
uses  have  long  existed  are  the  two  free  nations  of 
the  world.  In  England  and  the  United  States,  the 
method  of  doing  public  work  by  means  of  endow 
ments  managed  by  private  corporations  has  been 
domesticated  for  several  centuries;  and  these  are 
the  only  two  nations  which  have  succeeded  on  a 
great  scale  in  combining  liberty  with  stability  in 
free  institutions.  The  connection  of  these  two  facts 
is  not  accidental.  The  citizens  of  a  free  State  must 
be  accustomed  to  associated  action  in  a  great  va 
riety  of  forms ;  they  must  have  many  local  centers 
of  common  action,  and  many  agencies  and  admin 
istrations  for  public  objects,  besides  the  central 
agency  of  government.  France  perfectly  illustrates 
the  deplorable  consequences  of  concentrating  all 
powers  in  the  hands  of  government.  Her  people 
have  no  experience  in  associated  action,  and  no 

540 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

means  of  getting  any.  To  abandon  the  method  of 
fostering  endowments,  in  favor  of  the  method  of 
direct  government  action,  is  to  forego  one  of  the 
great  securities  of  public  liberty. 

The  sudden  abolition  of  the  exemption  would 
work  great  hardship,  because  of  the  nature  of  the 
contracts  and  undertakings  into  which  the  ex 
empted  institutions  are  accustomed  to  enter. 
Churches  and  coUeges  have  been  planted  or  built 
up,  life  salaries  have  been  promised,  wills  have 
been  made,  gifts  received,  trusts  accepted,  and  in 
vestments  made,  all  on  the  faith  of  this  exemption. 
In  all  the  institutions  of  advanced  instruction,  for 
example,  professors  are  appointed  for  life,  and  great 
hardships  would  result  from  the  violation  of  that 
implied  contract.  It  would  have  been  impossible 
for  Amherst  College  to  accept  the  gift  of  its  new 
Chapel,  or  Harvard  University  the  gift  of  its  Me 
morial  Hall,  except  under  the  exemption  statute. 
Several  active  churches  in  our  cities  have  built 
chapels  for  the  benefit  of  the  poorer  classes ;  they 
did  this  good  work  under  the  exemption  statute, 
and  neither  would  nor  could  otherwise  have  done 
it. 

In  case  the  legislature  should  see  fit  to  abolish 
the  exemption,  equity  would  require  that  taxation 
should  fall,  not  on  property  acquired  during  the 
existence  of  the  exemption,  but  only  on  that  ac 
quired  after  the  exemption  was  repealed.  The 
legislature  of  a  civilized  State  should  always  set  an 
example  of  scrupulous  respect  for  every  acquired 
right  or  vested  interest,  particularly  when  it  is  en- 

22* 


Tbe  Exemption  From  Taxation 

deavoring  to  enact  justice  and  equality  in  the  dis 
tribution  of  public  burdens. 

But  I  trust  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  discuss  how 
or  by  what  stages  this  exemption  should  be  abol 
ished.  The  American  States,  rough  and  rude  com 
munities  as  they  are  in  some  respects,  still  lacking 
many  of  the  finer  fruits  of  civilization,  neverthe 
less  possess  in  an  extraordinary  degree  the  main 
elements  of  national  strength.  Churches,  schools, 
and  colleges  were  their  historical  foundations,  and 
are  to-day  their  main  reliance.  The  general  respect 
for  religion  and  education,  the  prevalence  of  public 
spirit,  the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  the  common  main 
tenance  of  high  standards  of  character — these,  and 
not  growing  wealth  and  increasing  luxury,  are  the 
things  which  guarantee  free  institutions.  Massa 
chusetts  has  grown  to  be  what  she  is  under  legisla 
tion  which  fostered  institutions  of  religion,  high 
education,  and  charity,  and  these  institutions,  with 
the  public  schools,  are  the  very  foundations  of  her 
social  fabric.  We  must  not  undermine  the  foun 
dations  of  the  solid  old  house  which  our  fathers  so 
wisely  built. 

If  abuses  have  crept  in,  let  them  be  reformed.  If 
institutions  which  are  really  not  of  a  public  character 
get  exempted,  cut  them  off ;  if  greater  publicity  is 
desirable  in  regard  to  the  condition  and  affairs  of 
the  institutions  exempted,  provide  for  annual  pub 
lished  returns ;  if  there  be  fear  of  improper  sales  of 
land,  long  exempted,  to  the  private  advantage  of  the 
trustees  or  proprietors  of  the  moment,  enact  that  all 
sales  of  such  property  shall  be  by  order  of  a  court, 

342 


The  Exemption  From  Taxation 

and  that  the  court  shall  take  cognizance  of  the  in 
vestment  of  the  proceeds.  But  while  we  reform 
the  abuses,  let  us  carefully  preserve  the  precious 
uses  of  the  exemption  statute.  That  statute  is  an 
essential  part  of  our  existing  system  of  taxation. 
It  may  be  expedient  that  the  whole  system  should 
be  reconstructed;  but  the  exemption  of  religious, 
educational,  and  charitable  property  is  certainly 
not  the  point  at  which  the  reconstruction  should 
begin. 

Let  us  transmit  to  our  descendants,  in  long  gen 
erations,  the  invaluable  institutions  of  religion,  edu 
cation,  and  charity  which  we  inherited  from  our 
fathers,  and  transmit  them,  not  merely  as  strong 
and  ample  as  ever,  but  multiplied,  beautified,  and 
enriched  by  our  loving  care. 


343 


THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEW  ENGLAND 
CHURCHES 

ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  AT  THE  250™  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  FIRST  CHURCH,  BOSTON, 

1880 


THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEW 
ENGLAND  CHURCHES 


EOKINGr  back  with  grave  satisfaction  over 
the  long,  continuous  life  of  this  church,  and 
of  its  kindred  churches,  do  we  not  survey  the  very 
springs  and  sources  of  the  peculiar  character  of  the 
New  England  people  ?  Do  we  not  clearly  see  whence 
this  people  has  come  ?  Only  the  more  instant  be 
comes  that  question  which  of  late  years  has  been 
much  in  all  our  hearts  —  whither  is  this  people 
going?  There  cannot  be  many  persons  in  this 
company  who  have  not  already  said  to  themselves 
at  this  two  hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary,  Will 
the  First  Church  of  Boston  have  a  five  hundredth 
anniversary,  or  a  four  hundredth  ?  I  invite  your 
attention  very  briefly  to  three  reasons  for  indulging 
the  confident  expectation  that  it  will. 
^  I  remark,  first,  that  the  instinct  of  worship  is  a 
universal  instinct  of  the  race,  an  instinct  which 
.  civilization  refines  and  exalts,  but  has  no  tendency 
\  to  extinguish.  The  religious  sentiment  has  always 
been,  and  still  is,  the  strongest  power  in  the  world, 

347 


The  Future  of  the  New  England  Churches 

making  war  and  peace,  resisting  vice,  establishing 
and  overthrowing  governments,  fostering  democ 
racy,  destroying  slavery,  preserving  knowledge, 
building  cathedrals,  creating  literature,  and  inspir 
ing  oratory,  music,  and  art.  Unless  we  can  count  on 
the  permanence  of  this  religious  quality  or  faculty 
in  man,  we  cannot  count  upon  the  permanence  of 
any  of  his  attributes.  Yet  modern  science  teaches 
that  race  qualities  change  so  slowly  that  the  ordi 
nary  division  of  time  into  years  and  centuries  is  not 
fitted  to  express  the  rate  of  change.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say  that  rapid  change  of  theological 
opinion  may,  and  often  does,  go  on  from  generation 
to  generation  without  producing  any  effect  upon 
the  sentiments  of  religion,  or  upon  the  real  func 
tions  of  a  religious  organization.  The  doctrines  or 
dogmas  taught  now  in  this  church  bear  but  a  faint 
resemblance  to  those  of  the  seventeenth  century; 
but  the  main  objects  of  the  church  are,  and  ever 
will  be,  the  same  that  they  were  in  1630,  namely,  to 
worship  Grod  with  prayer  and  praise,  to  teach  men 
their  duty  and  urge  them  to  do  it,  and  to  carry 
their  thoughts  out  of  the  monotonous  round  of  their 
daily  lives,  beyond  the  sea,  above  the  sky,  to  the 
dwelling-place  of  the  Most  High.  Benjamin  Wads- 
worth,  who  left  the  pastorate  of  this  church  to  en 
counter  many  hardships  and  trials  as  president  of 
Harvard  College,  held  some  theological  opinions 
which  are  not  current  in  these  days.  Thus,  in  a 
sermon  preached  just  after  the  First  Church  was 
burned  in  1711,  he  says  very  simply,  "  'T  is  of  the 
mere  undeserved  mercy  of  G-od  that  we  have  not  all 

348 


The  Future  of  the  New  England  Churches 

of  us  been  roaring  in  the  unquenchable  flames  of 
hell  long  ago,  for  't  is  no  more  than  our  sins  have 
justly  deserved."  And  again,  in  a  sermon  entitled 
"The  Gospel  not  Opposed  but  by  the  Devil  and 
Men's  Lusts,"  he  gravely  remarks  that  "  nothing  is 
more  grating,  cutting,  and  enraging  to  the  Devil 
than  to  have  the  gospel  faithfully  preached  to  men." 
Doubtless  this  hearty  belief  in  the  unpleasantness 
of  the  sensations  which  faithful  preaching  inflicted 
upon  the  enemy  of  mankind  was  an  effective  incen 
tive  to  many  a  worthy  minister.  But  when  Dr. 
Wadsworth,  holding  these  now  obsolete  notions, 
came  to  the  practical  matter  of  advising  parents 
how  to  bring  up  their  children,  as  he  did  in  his  ser 
mon  entitled  "  The  Saint's  Prayer  to  Escape  Temp 
tations,"  he  gave  good  advice  for  all  time,  which  the 
latest  president  of  Harvard  College  will  gladly  adopt 
as  his  own ;  as,  for  example,  "  Teach  them  the  Scrip 
tures  ;  charge  them  to  live  soberly,  righteously,  and 
godlily ;  endeavor  the  preventing  of  idleness,  pride, 
envy,  malice,  or  any  vice  whatsoever;  teach  them 
good  manners  (a  civil,  kind,  handsome,  and  cour 
teous  behaviour) ;  render  them  truly  serviceable  in 
this  world,  and  so  dispose  of  them  in  trade  or  busi 
ness,  and  in  marriage,  as  they  may  be  least  liable 
to  temptations,  and  may  probably  be  most  furthered 
in  virtue  and  piety."  Let  us,  then,  settle  down  upon 
an  abiding  faith  that  the  instinct  of  worship  is  an 
indestructible  element  in  man's  nature,  and  that  the 
religious  and  ethical  sentiments  of  mankind,  which 
have  survived  all  the  physiological,  psychological, 
social,  and  political  changes  to  which  the  race  has 

349 


The  Future  of  tbe  New  England  Churches 

been  subjected,  will  exhibit  no  less  vitality  in  the 
future  than  they  have  in  the  past. 

In  the  second  place,  I  wish  to  point  out  that  the 
principle  of  associated  action  for  the  promotion  of 
a  common  object  has  been  wonderfully  developed 
in  this  country  and  in  England  during  the  present 
century.  Manufactures  are  carried  on,  goods  and 
passengers  are  transported,  money  is  lent,  colonies 
are  founded,  hospitals,  schools,  and  libraries  are 
maintained  by  associations  of  men  who  combine  for 
one  defined  object,  and  employ  paid  servants  to  do 
the  common  work.  There  is  hardly  a  conceivable 
philanthropic  enterprise  which  is  not  already  the 
field  of  some  benevolent  society.  This  facility  of 
association  being  one  of  the  chief  characteristics  of 
our  time,  and  a  church  having  become,  under  the 
laws,  only  an  association  of  like-minded  men  and 
women  for  the  satisfaction  of  their  religious  needs 
and  the  furtherance  of  good  works,  it  is  incon 
ceivable  that  the  principle  of  association,  which  is 
proving  so  valuable  in  every  other  field  of  human 
activity,  should  fail  to  work  well  when  applied,  as 
it  is  in  every  American  Protestant  church,  to  the 
promotion  of  worship,  charity,  and  piety.  To  our 
faith  in  the  permanence  of  the  religious  needs  and 
aspirations,  let  us  then  add  the  conviction  that 
never,  in  the  history  of  the  world,  has  it  been  so 
natural  and  easy,  as  it  is  now,  to  satisfy  those  crav 
ings  by  the  fruitful  method  of  voluntary  association. 

Thirdly,  let  us  gain  confidence  in  the  future  of 
the  New  England  churches  by  contemplating  the 
prodigious  changes  of  legal  condition  and  external 

350 


Tbe  Future  of  the  New  England  Churches 

circumstance  through  which  they  have  already 
passed  in  safety.  To  appreciate  the  magnitude  of 
these  changes,  we  must  recall  the  facts  that  suffrage 
in  Massachusetts  was  long  conditioned  upon  church 
membership ;  that  towns  could  be  fined  for  neglect 
ing  to  support  the  gospel ;  that  for  two  centuries 
attendance  at  meeting  on  the  Sabbath  could  be 
enforced  by  fine ;  that  all  corporations  holding 
lands  within  a  parish  were  taxable  down  to  1831 
for  the  support  of  public  worship,  and  that  down  to 
1835  the  property  of  individual  parishioners  was 
held  liable  for  the  debts  of  the  parish.  Never  was 
there  a  closer  union  of  Church  with  State  than  that 
which  existed  in  Massachusetts  in  1630,  and  never 
has  there  been  more  complete  separation  of  Church 
from  State  than  that  which  exists  in  Massachusetts 
to-day.  Churches  and  ministers  have  gradually 
been  stripped  of  every  peculiar  privilege  and  every 
adventitious  support,  until  they  now  stand  upon 
this  firm  ground  —  that  they  partly  satisfy  an  im 
perious  need  and  ineffable  longing  of  the  human 
soul.  Time  to  come  can  hardly  have  in  store  for 
the  New  England  churches  changes  comparable  in 
gravity  with  those  which  they  have  already  expe 
rienced.  Their  present  legal  condition  is  healthier, 
freer,  more  natural,  and  more  likely  to  be  stable 
than  any  previous  condition.  The  minister  is 
judged,  like  other  men,  by  his  gifts,  attainments, 
and  character;  and  the  church  is  valued  for  the 
services  which  it  renders  to  the  community. 

It  would  have  been  happier  for  the  cause  of  reli 
gion  if  the  disestablishment  of  churches  had  pro- 


The  Future  of  tbe  New  England  Churches 

ceeded  as  rapidly  in  Europe  as  it  has  in  Massachu 
setts.  History,  then,  might  not  have  had  to  record 
that  millions  of  educated  and  liberal-minded  men 
have  been  alienated  from  religion  by  the  habitual 
political  attitude  of  the  established  churches. 

Two  hundred  and  fifty  years  is  a  long  life  for 
anything  of  human  creation.  There  is  not  a  written 
political  constitution  in  the  world  which  has  even 
half  that  age.  Empires  and  republics  have  come 
and  gone,  old  dynasties  have  disappeared,  and  new 
ones  risen  to  power  within  that  period.  In  our  own 
little  Commonwealth,  not  only  the  external  form  of 
government  has  changed,  but  the  whole  theory  of 
the  political  constitution.  Every  industry,  manu 
facture,  and  human  occupation  has  undergone  fun 
damental  changes  in  its  processes  and  its  results. 
But  all  these  years  this  venerable  church  has  main 
tained  its  original  organization  and  held  stoutly 
on  its  way  through  gladness  and  gloom,  through 
sunshine  and  storm.  Solemnly,  resolutely,  and 
hopefully,  may  it  move  on  for  centuries  to  come. 

Does  any  one  ask  why  universities,  which  must 
inevitably  be  occupied  chiefly  with  secular  know 
ledge,  should  feel  any  great  concern  for  the  per 
manence  of  religious  institutions  f  I  answer,  that 
universities  exist  to  advance  science,  to  keep  alive 
philosophy  and  poetry,  and  to  draw  out  and  culti 
vate  the  highest  powers  of  the  human  mind.  Now 
science  is  always  face  to  face  with  God,  philosophy 
brings  all  its  issues  into  the  one  word  duty,  poetry 
has  its  culmination  in  a  hymn  of  praise,  and  a 
prayer  is  the  transcendent  effort  of  intelligence. 

352 


WHY  WE  HONOR  THE   PURITANS 

ADDRESS 

AT  THE  CELEBRATION  OF  THE  250™   ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  FIRST  PARISH 
CHURCH  IN  CAMBRIDGE,  FEBRUARY   I2TH,    1886 


M 


WHY  WE  HONOR  THE 
PURITANS 


I  WISH  to  confess,  in  the  first  place,  that  I  made 
a  grave  error  when  I  advocated  in  the  Com 
mittee  of  Arrangements  a  morning  celebration  of 
this  anniversary.  To  this  proposal  Dr.  McKenzie 
objected  that  the  men  of  his  congregation  could 
not  well  attend  in  the  forenoon,  and  that  it  would 
be  a  serious  charge  and  trouble  to  provide  a  mid 
day  meal  for  so  large  a  number  of  people  as  might 
assemble.  How  much  the  better  Puritan  he  was, 
I  discovered  a  few  days  later,  when  I  came,  in  the 
records  of  the  Great  and  General  Court,  upon  the 
following  enactment,  passed  October  1, 1633:  "And 
whereas  it  is  found  by  common  experience  that 
the  keeping  of  lectures  at  the  ordinary  hours  now 
observed  in  the  forenoon  to  be  divers  ways  preju 
dicial  to  the  common  good,  both  in  the  loss  of  a 
whole  day,  and  bringing  other  charges  and  trou 
bles  to  the  place  where  the  lecture  was  kept ;  it  is 
therefore  ordered  that  hereafter  no  lecture  shall 
begin  before  one  o'clock  in  the  afternoon."  For- 

355 


IVby  We  Honor  the  Puritans 

tunately  my  unhistorical  recommendation  did  not 
prevail. 

It  is  proper  that  a  representative  of  Harvard 
College  should  take  part  in  these  commemorative 
exercises.  The  college  owed  its  foundation  to  the 
nonconformist  ministers  who  came  hither  with 
the  first  emigration.  It  was  founded,  as  Thomas 
Shepard  said,  that  "the  Commonwealth  may  be 
furnished  with  knowing  and  understanding  men, 
and  the  churches  with  an  able  ministry."  For  the 
first  ten  years  of  the  life  of  the  College  three  fifths 
of  its  graduates  became  ministers  in  the  established 
Congregational  Church  of  the  colony,  and  for  a 
whole  generation  more  than  half  of  its  graduates 
entered  that  ministry.  Two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  have  wrought  a  great  change  in  this  respect. 
Instead  of  more  than  half  of  the  graduates  becom 
ing  Congregational  ministers,  not  more  than  six 
per  cent,  become  ministers  at  all;  and  this  small 
contingent  is  scattered  among  a  great  variety  of 
denominations.  In  1654,  Henry  Dunster,  the  first 
President  of  the  College,  was  indicted  by  the  grand 
jury  and  turned  out  of  office  because  he  had  be 
come  a  Baptist ;  now  the  two  oldest  professorships 
of  Divinity  are  held  in  peace  by  Baptist  ministers. 
When  I  came  hither  to  the  collation  this  afternoon, 
there  walked  beside  me  a  birthright  Quaker  who  is 
the  Dean  of  the  College  Faculty.  I  fear  that  Gov 
ernors  Dudley,  Endicott,  and  Winthrop,  and  Minis 
ters  John  Wilson  and  John  Norton  would  not  have 
been  pleased  to  see  a  Quaker  in  charge  of  the  Col 
lege.  I  fear  that  if  the  young  minister  John  Har- 


Why  We  Honor  the  Puritans 

vard  should  now  visit  his  posthumous  child,  the 
College,  with  his  ideas  of  1636  undeveloped,  he 
would  wish  at  first  sight  that  the  institution  bore 
s,ome  other  name. 

There  has  been  a  tone  of  exultation  and  triumph 
in  our  celebration,  as  if  we  thought  that  the  Puri 
tans  exulted  and  triumphed.  I  do  not  think  they 
did.  1  They  were  terribly  straitened,  and  were  full 
of  fear  and  anxiety.  They  saw  nothing  of  the  great 
and  happy  future.  What  they  knew  was  that  their 
lives  were  full  of  hardship  and  suffering,  of  toil 
and  dread.  Even  their  own  precious  liberty,  for 
which  they  had  made  such  sacrifices,  seemed  to 
them  in  perpetual  danger  from  oppressors  without 
and  heretics  within.  How  crushing  must  have 
been  the  constant  sense  of  their  isolation  upon  the 
border  of  a  vast  and  mysterious  wilderness !  The 
Puritans  were  a  poor  and  humble  folk,  f  Thomas 
Shepard  was  the  son  of  a  grocer  in  a  small  English 
village.  John  Harvard  was  the  son  of  a  butcher 
in  one  of  the  most  obscure  parishes  of  London. 
There  were  very  few  men  among  them  of  birth  or 
station.  In  the  early  years  they  were  often  pinched 
for  food.  What  must  they  not  have  suffered  from 
this  bitter  climate !  They  lived  at  first  in  such  shan 
ties  as  laborers  build  along  the  line  of  new  railroads 
in  construction,  or  in  such  cabins  as  the  pioneers  in 
Western  Kansas  or  Dakota  build  to  shelter  them 
from  the  rigors  of  their  first  winter.  They  had 
nothing  which  we  should  call  roads  or  bridges  or 
mails.  Snow,  ice,  and  mud,  and  the  numerous 
creeks  and  streams  isolated  the  scattered  villages 

23* 


Wby  We  Honor  the  Puritans 

and  farms,  and  made  even  the  least  communication 
difficult  for  half  of  the  year.  We  are  apt  to  think 
of  the  men  who  bore  these  hardships  as  stout  and 
tough,  and  to  waste  no  pity  on  them,  because  we 
cannot  help  imagining  that  they  knew  they  were 
founding  a  mighty  nation.  But  what  of  the  ten 
derer  women  ?  Generations  of  them  cooked,  car 
ried  water,  washed  and  made  clothes,  bore  children 
in  lonely  peril,  and  tried  to  bring  them  up  safely 
through  all  sorts  of  physical  exposures  without 
medical  or  surgical  help,  lived  themselves  in  terror 
of  savages,  in  terror  of  the  wilderness,  and  under 
the  burden  of  a  sad  and  cruel  creed,  and  sank  at 
last  into  nameless  graves,  without  any  vision  of 
the  grateful  days  when  millions  of  their  descend 
ants  should  rise  up  and  called  them  blessed.  What 
a  piteous  story  is  that  of  Margaret  Shepard,  mar 
ried  young  to  nonconforming  Thomas,  braver  than 
he,  confirming  his  faltering  resolution  to  emigrate, 
sailing  with  him  for  these  inhospitable  shores,  al 
though  very  ill  herself,  and  dying  here  within  a 
fortnight  of  the  gathering  of  the  church  over  which 
her  husband  was  to  preside!  Let  us  bear  her 
memory  in  our  hearts  to-night. 

But  I  dwell  too  much  on  physical  hardships. 
The  Puritans  had  other  fears  and  anxieties.  They 
dreaded  the  exercise  here  of  English  royal  power. 
They  watched  with  apprehension  the  prolonged 
struggle  of  the  Catholics  with  the  Protestant  pow 
ers  in  G-ermany,  giving  thanks  for  mercies  vouch 
safed  to  the  churches  of  God  whenever  the  Pro 
testants  obtained  a  substantial  success.  But  worst 

358 


Wby  We  Honor  the  Puritans 

of  all,  they  did  not  feel  sure  of  themselves.  They 
were  not  always  confident  that  they  could  hold  to 
their  own  ideals  of  life.  Within  ten  years  they  had 
serious  doubts  about  the  success  of  their  civil  and 
religious  polity  in  the  few  settlements  they  had 
made.  In  1639  "  the  4th  day  of  the  second  month 
was  thought  meet  for  a  day  of  humiliation,  to 
seek  the  face  of  God,  and  reconciliation  with  him 
by  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in  all  the  churches. 
Novelties,  oppression,  atheism,  excess,  superfluity, 
idleness,  contempt  of  authority,  and  troubles  in 
other  parts  to  be  remembered."  /  John  Pratt,  of 
Newtown,  must  have  given  expression  to  a  very 
common  feeling  when  he  wrote  in  an  apologetic 
letter  to  the  Court  of  Assistants  these  words : 
"Whereas  I  did  express  the  danger  of  decaying 
here  in  our  first  love,  I  did  it  only  in  regard  of  the 
manifold  occasions  and  businesses  which  here  at 
first  we  meet  withal,  by  which  I  find  in  my  own  ex 
perience  (and  so,  I  think,  do  others  also)  how  hard 
it  is  to  keep  our  hearts  in  that  holy  frame  which 
sometimes  they  were  in  where  we  had  less  to  do  in 
our  outward  things." 

The  Puritans  did  not  know  from  day  to  day 
what  should  be  on  the  morrow;  and  this  uncer 
tainty  only  makes  their  heroism  seem  greater. 
Examine  the  list  of  evils  against  which  they 
prayed  on  the  fourth  of  the  second  month  in  1639, 
and  consider  what  they  would  think  of  the  state  of 
our  generation  in  regard  to  the  same  subjects. 
"  Novelties ! "  Is  there  any  people  on  earth  fonder 
of  novelties  than  we  ?  The  American  people  is  the 

359 


IVby  We  Honor  tbe  Puritans 

only  people  I  have  ever  lived  among  which  takej; 
the  statement  that  a  thing  or  a  project  is  new  as  a 
recommendation.  We  like  and  welcome  novelties. 
"  Oppression ! "  They  were  in  constant  fear  of  op 
pression  exercised  by  King  and  Church.  That 
form  of  oppression  we  have  escaped  from,  only 
to  find  ourselves  compelled  to  be  on  our  guard 
against  another  form,  —  the  oppression,  namely, 
of  bewildered  and  misled  majorities.  "  Atheism ! " 
There  are  many  excellent  persons  within  these 
walls  to  whom  the  word  atheists  would  have  been 
applied  by  the  men  who  ordered  this  fast.  I  do 
not  believe  that  Governor  Dudley  or  Governor 
Endicott  would  have  tolerated  the  opinions  of  the 
most  orthodox  person  here  present.  We  all  know 
that  to-day  there  are  millions  of  men  of  the  Puri 
tan  stock  whom  the  Puritans  would  have  called 
atheists  and  treated  as  such.  "  Excess !  Super 
fluity  ! "  Think  what  they  meant  by  these  words. 
To  their  minds  these  evils  had  already  invaded 
their  society.  This  order  was  passed  only  nine 
years  after  the  landing  of  the  Winthrop  colony. 
They  had  been  through  great  sufferings  from  hun 
ger,  cold,  and  disease.  They  tried  to  regulate 
prices  and  consumption.  They  prohibited  slashed 
clothes,  large  sleeves,  laces  whether  of  gold,  silver, 
or  thread,  embroideries,  long  hair,  and  cakes  and 
buns  in  markets  and  victualling-houses.  They  laid 
heavy  taxes  upon  sugar,  spice,  wine,  and  strong 
waters,  because  they  held  these  things  to  be  un 
necessary  indulgences.  What  would  they  think 
of  our  way  of  living,  our  women's  apparel,  our 

360 


Why  We  Honor  the  Puritans 

church  decorations,  and  our  houses  full  of  bric-a- 
brac  ?  We  who  are  in  danger  of  having  our  intel 
lectual  and  spiritual  life  buried  under  the  weight 
of  our  luxuries  and  trivial  possessions  may  well 
reflect  upon  the  Puritans'  idea  of  excess  and  su 
perfluity.  "  Idleness  ! "  They  prayed  against  idle 
ness  ;  yet  it  is  said  of  them  that  they  worked  six 
teen  hours  a  day,  and  for  recreation  laid  stone 
walls.  The  notion  that  eight  hours  make  a  work 
ing  day  they  would  probably  have  accounted  a 
mischievous  whimsy.  "Contempt  of  authority!" 
Our  social  system  would  seem  to  them  full  of  dan 
gerous  license  and  pestilent  toleration. 
(  Neither  the  civil  nor  the  religious  polity  of  the 
Puritans  succeeded.  It  was  impossible  to  consti 
tute  a  state  on  the  basis  of  church  membership; 
it  was  impossible  to  make  life  all  duty  without 
beauty.  The  society  which  they  strove  to  found 
was  an  impossible  one;  for  in  their  social  aims 
they  ignored  essential  and  ineradicable  elements 
in  human  nature.  The  Crusaders  did  not  succeed, 
and  the  infidels  still  hold  Jerusalem.  The  Puritans 
did  not  succeed,  with  all  their  sacrifices  and  strug 
gles,  in  realizing  the  ideals  they  had  at  heart.  \ 
Why,  then,  do  we  so  honor  J;hem?  It  is  not 
simply  l3ecauseThey~were"stout-hearted.  Many  a 
soldier  of  fortune,  many  a  freebooter  or  robber 
chieftain,  has  been  stout-hearted  too.  \  It_is  be 
cause  they  were  stout-hearted  for  an  ideal, —  not 
our  ideal,  but  theirs,  —  their  ideal  of  civil  and  re-^ 
ligious'Tiberty^V  Wherever  and  whenever  resolute  ^ 
men  and  women  devote  their  lives  and  fortunes 

361 


Wby  We  Honor  the  Puritans 

not  to  material  but  to  spiritual  ends,  there  and 
then  heroes  are  made,  and,  thank  God,  are  made 
to  be  remembered.  The  Puritans  thought  to  es 
tablish  a  theocracy;  they  stand  in  history  as 
heroes  of  democracy.  // 

We  cannot  help  asking  ourselves  if  we,  their  de 
scendants,  may  possibly  be  remembered  two  hun 
dred  and  fifty  years  hence  for  any  like  devotion  to 
our  own  ideals.  Have  we  ideals  for  which  we 
would  toil,  and  suffer,  and  if  need  be,  die  f  The 
Civil  War  gave  one  answer  to  that  question.  But 
I  believe  that  in  peace  as  well  as  in  war  our  nation 
has  shown  that  it  has  ideals  for  which  it  is  ready 
to  bear  labor,  pain,  and  loss.  I  believe  that  no 
people  ever  sees  clearly  those  steps  in  its  own  pro 
gress,  those  events  in  its  own  life,  which  future 
generations  will  count  glorious.  Yet  I  think  we 
can  discern  some  moral  ideals  toward  which  our 
generation  strives.  We  strive  toward  a  progres 
sive  improvement  of  human  condition,  an  ameli 
oration  of  the  average  lot.  We  begin  to  get  a 
realizing  sense  of  that  perfect  democratic  ideal  — 
"  We  are  all  members  one  of  another."  The  grad 
ual  diminution  of  the  exercise  of  arbitrary  author 
ity  in  the  family,  in  education,  and  in  government 
is  another  ideal  toward  which  we  press.  We  have 
come  at  last  to  really  believe  that  he  that  would 
be  greatest  among  us  must  be  our  servant.  Fin 
ally,  I  think  that  we  are  working  upward  toward 
a  truer  and  more  beautiful  idea  of  God,  and  that 
these  very  times  may  be  remembered  in  later  gen 
erations  for  the  furthering  of  that  better  concep- 

362 


Wby  We  Honor  the  Puritans 

tion.  We  no  longer  think  of  God  as  a  remotely 
enthroned  monarch  who  occasionally  intervenes  in 
the  affairs  of  men,  or  even  as  the  Lord  of  Hosts. 
More  and  more  we  think  of  him  as  the  transcen 
dent  intelligence  and  love  in  whom  we  and  all 
things,  from  instant  to  instant,  "live  and  move 
and  have  our  being." 


563 


HEROES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

ADDRESS 
IN  MEMORIAL  HALL,  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY,  MAY  30,   1896 


HEROES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 


FT1HE  personal  heroism  of  the  men  we  comment 
I  orate  here  —  of  those  who  survived  as  well  as 
of  those  who  fell  —  had  two  elements  which  are 
especially  affecting  and  worthy  of  remembrance. 

In  the  first  place,  these  men  went  through  all  the 
squalor,  wretchedness,  and  carnage  of  war  without 
having  any  clear  vision  of  their  country's  future. 
They  did  not  know  that  victory  was  to  crown  the 
Union  cause ;  they  did  not  know  that  the  nation 
was  to  come  out  of  the  four  years'  struggle  deliv 
ered  from  slavery,  united  as  never  before,  and 
confident  as  never  before  in  its  resources  and  its 
stability.  One  of  the  worst  horrors  in  1860-61, 
before  the  war  opened,  was  the  sickening  doubt 
whether  we  really  had  any  country. 

Civil  war  is  immeasurably  worse  than  any  other 
war,  because  it  inevitably  creates  just  this  terrible 
doubt  about  the  national  future.  It  was  not  till 
1864-65  that  it  became  plain  that  the  North  would 
ultimately  win  military  success,  and  even  then  all 
men  saw  that  after  military  success  would  come 

567 


Heroes  of  the  Civil  War 

immense  civil  difficulties.  The  heroism  of  the  sol 
diers  on  both  sides,  and  the  pathos  of  their  suffer 
ings  and  sacrifices,  are  greatly  heightened  by  their 
inability  to  forecast  the  future.  Like  all  devoted 
souls,  they  walked  by  faith,  and  not  by  sight. 
Most  of  the  men  whose  names  are  written  on  these 
walls  died  with  no  shout  of  victory  in  their  ears, 
or  prospect  of  ultimate  triumph  before  their  glaz 
ing  eyes.  To  console  them  in  their  mortal  agony, 
in  their  supreme  sacrifice,  they  had  nothing  but 
their  own  hope  and  faith. 

Secondly,  the  service  these  men  rendered  to  their 
country  was  absolutely  disinterested.  No  profes 
sional  interest  in  war  influenced  them.  No  pay, 
or  prize  money,  or  prospect  of  pension  had  the 
least  attraction  for  them.  They  offered  their  ser 
vices  and  lives  to  the  country,  just  for  love,  and 
out  of  the  determination  that,  if  they  could  help  it, 
the  cause  of  freedom  should  take  no  harm.  On 
the  spur  of  the  moment  they  abandoned  promising 
civil  careers,  dear  homes,  and  the  natural  occupa 
tions  of  men  who  had  received  collegiate  training, 
for  the  savage  destructions  and  butcheries  of  war. 
No  mercenary  motive  can  be  attributed  to  any  of 
them.  This  disinterestedness  is  essential  to  their 
heroic  quality.  The  world  has  long  since  deter 
mined  the  limits  of  its  occasional  respect  for 
mercenary  soldiers.  It  admires  in  such  only  the 
faithful  fulfilment  of  an  immoral  contract.  The 
friends  we  commemorate  here  had  in  view  no  out 
ward  rewards  near  or  remote. 

To  these  heroes  of  ours,  and  to  all  soldiers  of  like 

368 


Heroes  of  the  Civil  War 

spirit  in  the  Civil  War,  we  owe  debts  which  can 
never  be  paid  except  in  respect,  admiration  and 
loving  remembrance.  We  owe  to  them  the  dem 
onstration  that  out  of  the  hideous  losses  and  horrors 
of  war,  as  out  of  pestilences,  famines,  shipwrecks, 
conflagrations  and  the  blastings  of  the  tornado, 
noble  souls  can  pluck  glorious  fruits  of  self-sacrifice 
and  moral  sublimity.  And  further,  we  owe  them  a 
great  uplifting  of  our  country  in  dignity,  strength 
and  security. 


369 


INTERNATIONAL  ARBITRATION 

SPEECH 

AT  THE  AMERICAN  CONFERENCE  ON  INTERNATIONAL  ARBITRATION  HELD  IN 
WASHINGTON,  APRIL  22  AND  23,  1896 


INTERNATIONAL  ARBITRATION 


I  CANNOT  bring  you  a  learned  essay  on  inter 
national  law,  such  as  that  we  have  just  listened 
to  with  so  much  pleasure  from  an  authoritative 
voice.1  I  must  speak  to  you  without  preparation, 
as  a  plain  American  citizen,  who  thinks  about  pub 
lic  problems,  who  has  read  some  history  of  his  own 
and  other  lands,  and  who  loves  his  country. 

You  remind  me,  Sir,  in  your  introduction,  that  I 
cannot  help  speaking  in  some  sense  for  an  ancient 
institution  of  our  land  —  Harvard  University.  I 
will  say,  in  the  first  place,  that  Harvard  University 
has  as  little  reason  as  any  institution  in  our  coun 
try  to  feel  an  irrational  or  exaggerated  dread  of 
war.  It  has  survived  many  wars  —  Indian,  French, 
and  English.  Ever  since  the  early  days,  when  the 
Puritan  meeting-houses  had  to  be  fortified,  and  all 
males  over  sixteen  were  required  to  carry  their  guns 
and  ammunition  to  meeting,  the  graduates  of  Har 
vard  University  have  been  taking  part  in  war  after 
war,  till  we  come  down  to  the  twelve  hundred  grad- 

i  John  Randolph  Tucker,  of  Washington  and  Lee  University. 

373 


International  Arbitration 

uates  and  students  who  entered  the  army  and  navy 
of  the  United  States  in  the  Civil  War.  The  chief 
building  of  the  University  commemorates  one  hun 
dred  and  fifty  Harvard  men  who  laid  down  their 
lives  for  the  country  in  that  war  alone.  When  Lord 
Percy  marched  to  reinforce  Major  Pitcairn,  retreat 
ing  from  Lexington,  his  column  passed  right  by  the 
college  gate.  When  the  little  band  of  raw  militia, 
who  were  to  throw  up  intrenchments  on  Bunker 
Hill,  were  paraded  on  the  green  in  front  of  the  Uni 
versity  on  the  evening  before  the  battle,  the  Presi 
dent  of  Harvard  College  offered  prayer  before  them, 
as  for  men  going  into  deadly  peril  in  a  righteous 
cause.  The  British  army  was  within  three  miles. 
The  leading  patriots  of  that  day  in  Boston  and  Cam 
bridge  literally  took  in  their  hands  "their  lives, 
their  fortunes,  and  their  sacred  honor."  All  the 
buildings  of  Harvard  College  were  occupied  for 
months  by  the  patriot  army  besieging  Boston.  The 
Corporation  of  the  College,  which  is  working  to-day 
under  the  charter  given  in  1650,  has  been  through 
crisis  after  crisis,  industrial,  financial,  and  agricul 
tural,  always  trying  to  preserve  the  precious  funds 
given  for  the  promotion  of  learning.  Panics,  crises, 
or  periods  of  financial  and  industrial  disturbance, 
supervene  invariably  upon  war.  Many  and  many 
a  one  has  the  College  passed  through.  In  two  hun 
dred  and  sixty  years  we  have  had  full  experience  of 
war  and  its  consequences  to  the  institutions  of  edu 
cation  and  religion;  and  yet,  Harvard  University 
knows  full  well,  by  its  own  observation  and  experi 
ence,  that,  as  the  last  speaker  has  just  said,  heroic 

374 


International  Arbitration 

virtue  may  be  plucked  by  noble  souls  from  out  the 
desolation,  carnage,  and  agony  of  war.  We  know, 
too,  that  even  from  an  unjust  war,  like  that  with 
Mexico,  a  nation  may  win  advantages  real  and  per 
manent,  though  undeserved.  Therefore,  when  we 
plead  for  arbitration,  we  do  not  necessarily  deny 
that  war  has  a  greatness  of  its  own,  and  that  out  of 
it  may  sometimes  come  permanent  gain  for  the 
moral  forces  of  human  society ;  but  we  do  maintain 
that  the  deliberate  bringing  about  of  war  through 
a  belligerent  public  policy  can  be  compared  only 
to  the  deliberate  and  intentional  introduction  of  a 
pestilence  into  a  crowded  city,  in  order,  forsooth, 
that  thousands  of  victims  may  have  opportunity  to 
suffer  and  die  with  patience,  and  that  some  noble 
souls  —  nurses,  doctors,  and  mothers — may  have 
opportunity  to  develop  and  display  heroic  quali 
ties.  The  one  operation  would  be  just  as  reason 
able  as  the  other.  Never,  never  let  us  hear  it 
maintained  in  our  country  that  war  should  be  de 
liberately  provoked  and  brought  about,  in  order 
that  there  may  be  developed  in  a  few  souls  the  noble 
qualities  which  give  victory  over  loss,  pain,  and 
death. 

And  what  shall  we  say  about  careless  inattention 
to  those  insidious  or  hidden  sources  of  national  ex 
asperation  which,  in  their  development,  may  pro 
duce  war  ?  I  believe,  Mr.  President,  that  it  is  just 
apprehension  about  such  carelessness,  such  inatten 
tion  to  the  tendencies  of  a  public  policy  that  may 
lead  to  war,  which  has  brought  this  conference  to 
gether.  We  have  lately  seen  in  a  public  print 

375 


International  Arbitration 

some  remarks,  presumably  by  a  graduate  of  Har 
vard  University — for  every  possible  shade  of  opin 
ion  is  developed  among  the  graduates  of  that 
populous  institution  —  about  the  inopportuneness 
of  this  assembly.  I  shall  venture  to  say  some 
words  on  that  subject. 

Why  have  we  come  together  at  this  time  I  It  is, 
I  believe,  because  we,  like  other  thoughtful  Ameri 
can  citizens,  have  been  surprised  and  shocked  at  the 
risk  of  war  which  the  country  has  lately  incurred. 
Only  four  months  ago,  a  message  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States  seemed  to  thousands  of  sober- 
minded  men,  in  this  and  other  countries,  to  contain 
a  grave  threat  of  war  in  case  a  boundary  question 
between  two  other  nations  should  fail  of  settlement 
by  arbitration,  and  our  own  uninvited  decision  of 
it  should  be  rejected.  Shortly  after,  we  learnt  with 
astonishment  that,  months  before,  the  Secretary  of 
State  had  issued  from  this  capital  papers  of  a  tenor 
which,  in  a  contest  between  two  individuals,  would 
fairly  have  been  called  exasperating.  All  men  know 
that  the  peaceful  settlement  of  a  controversy  be 
tween  two  self-confident  and  strong  men  is  not  pro 
moted  if  one  says  to  the  other,  "  My  fiat  shall  be 
law  between  us."  Such  views,  conveyed  in  public 
documents,  took  thousands  of  thoughtful  Americans 
by  surprise.  The  surprise  and  the  shock  to  public 
opinion  were,  I  dare  say,  unforeseen  and  unin 
tended  ;  but  they  were  inevitable  from  the  tone  of 
the  papers. 

Then  we  had  another  surprise.  We  have  thought 
that  the  separation  of  the  executive  and  legislative 

376 


International  Arbitration 

functions  in  our  republic  had  one  great  advantage 
on  which  we  might  rely  —  namely,  that  when  ex 
ecutive  propositions  of  a  serious  nature  were  laid 
before  the  legislative  branches,  the  legislature 
might  be  depended  on  to  take  time  for  considera 
tion,  and  so  to  procure  delay.  We  have  been  pain 
fully  surprised  to  learn  by  the  actual  event  that 
that  reliance  is  not  well  founded. 

Moreover,  there  has  been  brought  forcibly  to  our 
notice  a  phenomenon  new  in  our  country,  and  per 
haps  in  the  world  —  namely,  the  formidable  inflam 
mability  of  our  multitudinous  population,  in  con 
sequence  of  the  recent  development  of  telegraph, 
telephone,  and  bi-daily  press.  I  think  that  fairly 
describes  the  phenomenon  of  four  months  ago  — 
our  population  is  more  inflammable  than  it  used  to 
be,  because  of  the  increased  use  in  comparatively 
recent  years  of  these  great  inventions. 

Still  another  disquieting  fact  has  been  forced  on 
our  attention.  Quite  within  recent  years  it  has 
become  the  practice  to  employ  as  cabinet  officers 
men  who  have  not  had  legislative  experience,  or 
experience  with  any  branch  of  the  Government,  be 
fore  assuming  these  important  functions.  One 
reason  for  this  new  practice  is  that  senatorships 
are  much  more  attractive  than  cabinet  offices.  But, 
be  the  reason  what  it  may,  this  recent  practice  has 
introduced  into  our  governmental  system  a  new 
and  serious  danger — the  danger  of  inexperience 
in  high  place,  the  danger  of  bringing  into  great 
public  functions  men  suddenly  taken  from  business, 
or  from  the  controversial  profession  of  the  law. 

25*  377 


International  Arbitration 

Besides  these  revelations  of  the  last  four  months, 
there  is  another  inducement  for  thoughtful  Ameri 
cans  to  interest  themselves  in  all  the  means  of  in 
terposing  obstacles  to  sudden  movements  toward 
war.  We  have  heard  during  the  last  eight  or  ten 
years  from  both  political  parties,  and  perhaps  as 
much  from  the  one  as  from  the  other,  the  advocacy 
of  a  policy  entirely  new  among  us,  absolutely  re 
pugnant  to  all  American  diplomatic  doctrines,  and 
imported  straight  from  the  aristocratic  and  mili 
tary  nations  of  Europe.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  this 
recent  doctrine  called  jingoism  —  a  detestable  word 
for  a  detestable  thing.  I  should  be  at  a  loss  to  decide 
which  party  in  this  country  has  been  most  guilty 
of  this  monstrous  teaching ;  and  if  inquired  of  by 
some  observant  person  in  this  audience,  I  should 
be  obliged  in  honesty  to  confess,  that  among  the 
worst  offenders  in  this  respect  are  to  be  found  sev 
eral  graduates  of  Harvard  University.  What  can 
be  clearer  than  that  this  doctrine  is  an  offensive 
foreign  importation,  against  which,  unfortunately, 
our  protective  legislation  has  proved  an  inadequate 
defense.  The  very  term  is  of  English  origin,  and 
is  taken,  not  from  the  best  side  of  English  politics, 
but  from  the  worst,  from  the  politics  of  Palmer- 
ston  and  Disraeli,  and  not  of  Bright,  Gladstone, 
Hartington,  and  Balfour.  It  is  the  most  abject 
copy  conceivable  of  a  pernicious  foreign  idea ;  and 
yet  some  of  our  public  men  endeavor  to  pass  it  off 
among  our  people  as  American  patriotism.  A 
more  complete  delusion,  a  falser  representation, 
cannot  be  imagined.  The  whole  history  of  the 

373 


International  Arbitration 

American  people  runs  directly  counter  to  this  Eu 
ropean  notion.  Our  nation  has  always  advocated 
the  rights  of  neutrals,  arbitration,  and  the  peaceful 
settlement  of  international  disputes.  It  has  con 
tributed  more  than  any  other  nation  to  the  devel 
opment  of  successful  methods  of  arbitration.  It 
has  contributed  more  than  any  other  nation  to  the 
promotion  of  peace  and  the  avoidance  of  great  ar 
maments.  What  other  powerful  nation  has  dis 
pensed  with  a  standing  army  !  What  other  nation 
with  an  immense  seaboard  has  maintained  but  an 
insignificant  fleet  ?  It  has  been  our  glory  to  be 
safe,  though  without  fortresses,  fleets,  or  armies. 
Can  anything  be  more  off  ensi  veto  the  sober-minded, 
industrious,  laborious  classes  of  American  society 
than  this  doctrine  of  jingoism,  this  chip-on-the- 
shoulder  attitude,  this  language  of  the  ruffian  and 
the  bully  ?  That  is  just  what  jingoism  means  in 
its  native  soil,  where  it  is  coupled  with  a  brutal 
and  insolent  militarism,  natural  enough  to  coun 
tries  where  the  government  has  been  despotic  or 
aristocratic,  and  the  military  class  has  been  enor 
mous,  but  absolutely  foreign  to  American  society. 
The  teaching  of  this  doctrine  by  our  press  and 
some  of  our  public  men  is  one  of  the  reasons  why 
this  conference  is  gathered  now.  We  want  to  teach 
just  the  opposite  doctrine.  We  want  to  set  forth  in 
the  daily  and  periodical  press,  and  by  publications 
of  our  own,  what  the  true  American  doctrine  on 
international  relations  really  is.  As  one  of  the 
speakers  said  this  afternoon,  we  want  to  have  the 
children  of  this  country  —  the  young  men  who  are 

379 


International  Arbitration 

rising  up  into  places  of  authority  and  influence  — 
taught  what  the  true  American  doctrine  of  peace 
has  been,  what  the  true  reliance  of  a  great,  strong, 
free  nation  should  be  —  not  the  force  of  arms,  but 
the  force  of  righteousness.  The  moment  is  oppor 
tune  for  the  inculcation  of  these  doctrines.  We 
have  escaped  a  serious  danger ;  but  thoughtful  men 
should  say,  "  We  will  now  make  such  preparation 
as  will  give  us  a  new  security  for  peace  —  namely, 
the  preconcerted,  prearranged  security  of  a  treaty 
of  arbitration."  That  it  is  which  this  meeting  has 
come  together  to  support,  maintain,  and  inculcate 
as  the  duty  and  privilege  of  the  American  people. 

I  can  hardly  conceive  that  any  person  who  has 
read  the  history  of  our  country  should  arrive  at  any 
other  conclusion  with  regard  to  its  natural  mission ; 
and  yet,  in  this  very  conference,  one  gentleman 
arose  to  say  that  we  had  a  mission  to  carry  our  po 
litical  ideas  over  the  world,  to  spread  the  knowledge 
of  our  free  institutions  and  our  methods  of  self-gov 
ernment  among  the  peoples  of  the  earth ;  and  that, 
like  England,  we  should  execute  this  mission  by 
ships  and  guns,  and  like  her,  should  fortify  our  sea 
board  to  resist  aggression.  A  propaganda  of  armed 
force  was  recommended,  to  carry  over  the  world 
the  public  principles  of  liberty  for  which  our  nation 
stands. 

Now  I,  too,  believe  that  this  nation  has  a  mission 
in  the  world,  a  noble  mission;  but  it  is  not  that 
one.  It  is  not  by  force  of  arms  that  we  may  best 
commend  to  the  peoples  of  the  earth  the  blessings 
of  liberty  and  self-government,  but  rather  by  taking 

380 


International  Arbitration 

millions  from  various  peoples  into  our  own  land,  and 
here  giving  them  experience  of  the  advantages  of 
freedom.  Have  we  not  done  that  ?  Eighteen  mil 
lions  strong  they  have  come  since  1850.  All  of  us 
have  come  within  three  hundred  years;  and  this 
great  nation  has  grown  up  on  this  continental  terri 
tory,  believing  in  and  practising  the  principles  of 
self-government,  freedom,  and  peace.  There  is  only 
one  other  means  by  which  we  should  teach  these 
principles  to  men.  It  is  by  example  —  by  giving 
persuasive  example  of  happiness  and  prosperity 
arrived  at  through  living  in  freedom  and  at  peace. 
Never  should  we  advocate  the  extension  of  our  in 
stitutions  by  force  of  arms,  either  on  sea  or  on  land ; 
never  should  we  attempt  to  force  another  nation  to 
adopt  arbitration  or  any  other  doctrine  of  peace. 

I  naturally  think  of  the  educational  object  of  this 
meeting.  I  trust  that  in  all  our  public  schools 
these  principles  which  I  have  just  stated  may  be 
taught  as  the  true  American  doctrine  on  this  sub 
ject.  One  speaker,  this  afternoon,  mentioned  a  spe 
cial  subject  in  which  he  thought  instruction  should 
be  given  throughout  our  land.  He  said :  "  We  have 
been  taught  in  our  schools  about  the  battles  of  the 
nation.  We  have  not  been  taught  about  the  arbitra 
tions  of  our  nation."  Let  us  teach  the  children  what 
is  the  rational,  sober,  righteous  mode  of  settling 
international  difficulties.  Let  us  teach  them  that 
war  does  not  often  settle  disputes,  while  arbitration 
always  does;  that  what  is  reasonable  and  righteous 
between  man  and  man  should  be  made  reasonable 
and  righteous  between  nation  and  nation. 

381 


[The  following  inscriptions  were  prepared  for  the 
Water-G-ate  at  the  World's  Fair,  Chicago,  in  1893, 
by  request  of  Director  Burnham.  The  shapes  and 
sizes  of  the  several  tablets,  and  therefore  the  ap 
proximate  number  of  letters  which  could  be  used 
on  each,  had  been  already  determined.  My  plan 
was  to  commemorate  on  the  side  toward  the  lake 
the  explorers  and  pioneers  in  the  literal  sense,  and 
on  the  side  toward  the  Court  of  Honor  the  pioneers 
of  civil  and  religious  liberty. 

The  inscription  beginning  "  To  the  bold  men,"  on 
the  side  toward  the  lake,  prepared  the  way  for 
Lowell's  splendid  verse  on  the  other  side,  "But 
bolder  they,  etc."  That  verse,  the  two  Bible  texts, 
Lowell's  lines  on  the  left  lower  panel  toward  the 
Court  of  Honor,  and  Lincoln's  sentence  on  the  right 
lower  panel  I  selected ;  the  rest  I  wrote. — C.  W.  E.] 


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TO  COMING  GENERATIONS 


386 


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